#technically this was billed as binary style

[purrprince]

commission for someone on toyhouse. been a while since I've done spriting.

[nb character, they/them]

-kofi link - (discount)commissions open-    

#sfw furry #clean furry #weirdfur #commission #furry #lovecore #artists on tumblr #sprite art #pixel art #axolotl character #axolotl furry #technically this was billed as binary style #but I think if I take another commission like this I'd price it differently #eyestrain jic

[raventhedracovis]

tell us about wordgirl bestie!

Will gladly use this as an opportunity to talk about a few headcanons that are canon in mine and @c0de-0f-the-clans reboot!

I'll stick with the characters we've done line ups for for now. Which would be: Becky/Wordgirl, Huggy, Tobey, Dr. Two-Brains, Chuck, The Butcher, Charlie, The Other Henchman, The Whammer, Invisi-Bill, Big Left Hand Guy, Ms. Question, and The Coach.

Becky/Wordgirl (or course we're starting with the girl herself):

Bi. She just is. I don't make the rules. Yes I do >:3

Non-binary but uses she/her pronouns. Comes from noticing in the show how casual she is with referring to herself as "mister". Even lampshaded in the Thanksgiving episode when she says "no more mister nice Becky! ... Or miss Becky. Either one :)".

She's got two birthdays, the day her parents adopted her and the approximate date she was actually born. Her birthday is always celebrated September 28th, but her actual birthday is closer to December 16th.

Part of the reason Becky sucks at art so much is because she sees way more colors than humans can perceive. A color combination that looks good to her just looks ugly or like the same shade of brown. Though even without the whole "painting with colors beyond human perception" thing she just generally sucks at art.

Becky is autistic and stims by pulling and messing with her hair. We also decided she has a bee necklace and she fidgets with it too.

Her full name is Rebecca but goes by Becky.

She's currently 4'5" and the shortest in her grade. When she's all grown up she's going to tower over her friends at around six feet (or more).

Bob/Captain Huggy Face:

Captain Huggy Face is not his real name (or title but I'll get to that in a later post). It's just the name Wordgirl came up with on the spot.

Just like Becky, Bob is only his nickname. Robert is his full name in the family.

Pan.

Non-binary as well. Just his vibes.

By Lexicon standards, he's considered colorblind. By Earth standards, he's not fhdh.

In his late 20's, but part of the reason is for a different post.

Chuck the Evil Sandwich-Making Guy

Trans man <3

Demi pan.

Chuck's full name is Charles Edward Guy.

Chuck is in his early 20's, a headcanon we pulled thanks to a flashback in the show where Tim and Sally are clearly around the same age they found and adopted Becky but Chuck is oh so small.

Dr. Two-Brains

He stands at 6'5" but slouches a lot and therefore looks more like 6'3".

Technically has three birthdays! One for Steven, one for Squeaky, and one for the day the two fused.

Pan. Can and will flirt with anyone and everything.

In his late 30's.

The Henchmen

The other henchman is Joey Meatball. We both had different ideas of what his name was and thought the combined name was funny.

The two are romantically involved <3

Charlie is 6'7", the other one is 5'2".

Both are in their 40's.

The Butcher

He's 6'9". Big man.

His full name is Jack Edison Shepherd Jr. He went by Butch for a while as a kid, and it kind of stuck.

Bi

The reason he struggles with words so much is because he has an expressive language disorder.

In his early 40's.

Tobey

While he was the tallest kid in 5th grade, he's only gonna be 5'4" all grown up, and it's going to make him so, so mad jhkdg.

We have also hit him with the autism beam.

He had braces at some point, as evidenced by a retainer that can be seen by his bed in most episodes. We have however, just given him braces in our reboot.

Tobey has anxious attachment style. Something I can literally talk about in paragraphs (and have. Twice.) and will probably share another day.

His birthday is reverse pi, 4/13.

The Whammer

The Whammer is half Greek, half Texan, and 100% professional wrestler. His father is a Greek immigrant who got into the professional wrestling career where he met The Whammer's mother, a professional wrestler from Texas.

His real name is Adam Minos.

Was supposed to follow in his parents' footprints and apprenticed under his dad. Unfortunately, his powers where deemed illegal for use in the ring.

In his early 20's.

He's 5'8".

Gay.

Invisi-Bill

He is romantically involved with Big Left Hand Guy. :]

In his early 30's.

He has ADHD.

Stands at about 5'11".

Gay.

Big Left Hand Guy

He is romantically involved with Invisi-Bill. :]

He's related to one of the reoccurring bank security guards.

Has anxiety.

In his late 30's.

He's 5'1".

Gay.

Ms. Question

Trans and non-binary. She's non-binary in the sense that she dodges any questions about her gender. No matter what, she will make you second guess yourself when you try to give her a label.

She's Afro-Latina.

Bicurious, because she's also dodge the question jdfkgh.

Her civilian name is Anne Neasia.

In her early 30's.

Very tall woman. Stands at 6'.

The Coach

The Coach has dwarfism. He stands at 4'8".

He's related to Timmy Tim-Bo. It's why he keeps him around.

In his late 40's.

#Wordgirl #becky botsford #bob botsford #captain huggyface #chuck the evil sandwich making guy #dr two brains #the butcher #tobey mcallister iii #the whammer #invisibill #big left hand guy #ms question #the coach

[govindhtech]

5 Life-Changing Generative AI Marvels!

5 life-changing generative AI applications

Generative AI unlocks AI’s infinite capacity.

Upon ChatGPT’s 2022 November beginning, everyone on earth has been charmed by AI. ChatGPT launched generative AI, which uses models trained on massive data sets to produce new content from basic text or voice cues.

Before large language models (LLMs), AI apps and solutions examined data and produced predictions from a small data set. Traditional AI is used in autonomous system control, chatbots, customer service agents, fraud detection, game playing, natural language processing, recommender systems, risk analysis, system management, and security surveillance. Traditional AI applications will develop, but generative AI provides new doors.

LLMs can detect, summarize, forecast, and produce unique text, audio, pictures, and video from massive data sets. AI gains powers previously reserved for humans.

1. Content creation

Generative AI’s first focus is content creation modifying or creating new material. This might be an email, article, blog post, poem, or narrative.

In audio format, generative AI responses might be voice responses, noises, or songs. This includes realistic or fantastical images, graphic design, and adding or eliminating features. When paired with music, a video format just a collection of images can become a game, movie, synthetic game character, or even a metaverse world.

Generative AI makes creating educational content easier. Healthcare providers may employ generative AI for patient rehabilitation training, and educators can improve learning curricula.

AI content creation has almost limitless possibilities.

Design is a promising topic for generative AI. Generative AI encourages combining materials, style, environmental data, and technical expertise to make garments, automobiles, consumer items, structures, and more. This gives any company that creates a product of any size or form the opportunity for unique or customized designs, decreased time to market, greater flexibility, and better dependability, while offering a new tool for DIY projects.

2. Customization

Personalized digital assistants with contextual awareness and human-like communication will change civilization with generative AI.

A recent interview with Durga Malladi, SVP & GM, Technology Planning & Edge Solutions, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., suggested that this assistant, accessible from your car or smartphone, could recommend a restaurant based on your preferences, dietary restrictions, and location, make a reservation for you at your likely arrival time, and possibly place your dinner and drink order.

Generative AI might create your diet, workout regimen, entertainment schedule, and bills.

 3. Code creation

Generative AI creates code, the foundation of all modern technology.

Generative AI may help programmers design, test, update, and maintain code across an application, saving millions of man hours and assuring timely upgrades.

This is crucial when autonomous devices and sophisticated applications increase code complexity and size.

4. Natural UI

Generative AI is revolutionizing device interaction. Text and voice interpretation has greatly improved, enabling chat-like device interactions to complete tasks.

Voice may be more intuitive than touch for gadget interaction. Chatting with a gadget is easier than finding an app, using it, or finding a setting. It simplifies and democratizes user experience.

Generative AI speaks English, Chinese, Spanish, binary code, pictures, and almost any modality. This allows different applications, programs, and devices to effortlessly solve the machine-to-machine communication interface problem and enhance your life.

Generative AI makes it easy to check your car’s tire pressure, read the washing machine warning message, and restrict your phone’s blue light at night.

5.Research

Generative AI offers almost limitless scientific research and analysis possibilities. The capacity to suggest, predict, and simulate interactions is valuable for drug development, chemical analysis, material design, and atmospheric modeling.

When data is scarce or hard to get, generative AI may mimic data to assist research and analysis. Scientific advances will continue with generative AI.

Possible outcomes are unlimited.

As with every groundbreaking technology, its influence on applications, use patterns, and sectors will be greater than expected.

It’s hard to imagine how many uses generative AI has.

Some will contain standard AI uses. All of this is achievable now and will improve and grow as models are adjusted. These features will be offered in more tailored versions and platforms.

Qualcomm Technologies is in your hand, laptop, and automobile.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

#generativeAI #LLMs #smartphone #Qualcomm #laptop #mobile #technews #technology #govindhtech

[authoressofdarkness]

His Perfect Model - Chapter 1

Tony doesn’t need the money from porn shoots, Lord knows. It’s just a fun, extremely well paying side gig. But when he somehow acquires permanent... ah, custody... of the omega from his latest shoot, he knows he’s found his perfect model. And their fun together is only beginning. It may take him some time to convince Peter of that, but really, he’s not too worried.

Read on AO3 here. Notes, warnings, and Chapter 1 under the cut.

Notes: Hello hello! I'm back again! This is another random plot bunny that I've been fidgeting with for a while, but I was eventually convinced to get it up sooner rather than later, so here it is! This first chapter is very explicit, and it probably will be rather smutty most of the way through. Not sure how long this will be yet or what it will deal with, but just for transparency, there may be talk of past trauma that could extend to noncon, dubcon, kidnapping, human trafficking, and more. I'll tag each chapter accordingly as we get there, but none of it should be too explicit. Also, anyone familiar with GMSTS will be familiar with how I write ABO, but, as simply as possible, omegas have vaginas, alphas have cocks, and betas are what we would consider "binary." Again, I say so ahead of time just in the interest of transparency so I don't accidentally trigger anyone's dysphoria. Aaaanyway, if you've made it through my rambling and are still interested, yay! Thank you for being here, read on, and I hope you enjoy! <3

He tries not to judge.

That was probably why he gets hired for so many gigs. That and his insane amount of talent, but — well. Anyone could have that amount of talent with working with equipment if they tried. Now the fact that he builds his own… that is something special, he knows.

And, really, his technical prowess was what pays his bills more than anything, and is what made him rich. That, and his father’s name, but he tries to keep that part more under wraps. He’d turned away the responsibility that normally came with being a Stark a long time ago; but the intelligence and the mechanical prowess is practically in his blood. Unable to be rejected.

Anyway, the point is, he doesn’t need to do porn shoots; yet he still enjoys taking these side jobs. He always had, even on his way to the top, and he never made any attempt to hide it.

He doesn’t just shoot porn, of course. He’d lend his camera skills to anyone who asks and has the money to back up the offer. But of course the dirty jobs tend to be his favorites. Any alpha that says they don’t like to pose an omega how they like and look at their pretty pussy for any amount of time — and get paid the big bucks to do it — was certainly a liar.

And yeah, he takes some weird jobs included in that. But he doesn’t ask many questions except on the preferences for stylings of the job, and he’s kinky enough himself to never dream of judging the extremism of it, so… yeah, he makes pretty good money.

Today might be testing the extent of it, though.

The scene he is shooting today isn’t particularly extreme or out of the ordinary, on first glance. The omega was to be strapped to a chair with a wand tied in place to tease his pussy, and Tony is supposed to capture it in photo and on video as his torture goes through stages of multiple denials until he’s hypersensitive and begging to stop. The rest was put as to be determined based on the way it comes out.

It is far from the craziest thing he’s ever shot, and he planned it out easily enough, with a few of his favorite toys and set pieces, and he’s easily ready to go.

The weird part starts when the omega gets there.

It’s apparent immediately that this is no porn star. Aside from his experience in the field and the number of them he actually knew from it, Peter doesn’t carry himself like one. He is small and shy, with a lithe, gorgeous body, as Tony can see from the moment the two gruff alphas accompanying him strip him out of the poor excuse for a covering the omega had been wearing. All he was left in then was a slip, and it’s sheer fabric did nothing to hide the pretty nude form underneath.

Most people arrived in normal clothes and then would either change or strip.

The second thing was that he is already bound. Again, unusual. Clearly he hadn’t driven himself, of course, but… this must be a really elaborate scene for him to already be tied up. And the rope isn’t even the good stuff; it’s plain and grainy, certainly hurting his wrists and not at all his color. Tony always used rope that complimented the style of the scene and the person’s skin. It would be a waste not to.

Peter is gorgeous, and he could have used a lot of colors, admittedly. But the boy is delicate and pale — his pussy much the same in the photos — and so he’d chosen a light pink, one that didn’t wash out his already pale form and almost matched the pretty color of the soft bits he’d been paid to pay special attention to. It’s easy enough to match the background of the scene and the colors of the toys and rope together, thematically.

But that aside, all of the choices up to this point were strange. Stranger than he’s used to. But he makes it a point not to say anything. He’s not being paid to judge.

Even if Peter looks almost scared of the two men he came in with. Even if something rings off about this whole gig.

Tony isn’t stupid, but he doesn’t care much for the loss of business — at least — pushing for the truth would cause. So he pushes the thoughts down and finally approaches the omega.

“Hi, princess. Gentlemen.” He kneels down to be at Peter’s level. “My name’s Tony. I’m going to be the one taking your photos, honey. Can I get you anything before we start? A water? Bathroom break?” The omega silently shakes his head. “Alright. Let's get started then.” He holds out a hand to help him up.

Peter takes it, and Tony helps him to his feet and guides him over to the chair. “Now we’re going to start with some photos on the floor and make our way into the chair. I’m going to change out your ropes. I want you to leave the slip on, for now.” It’s white, a nice color to highlight the details of the creamy skin underneath, and doesn’t contrast with his ropes, either.

He cuts the bonds on the omega’s wrists and reties them in front of him with the pink rope, then has him lay down on the floor, propping his ankles up on the edge of the chair so the slip falls back to expose creamy thighs and stomach and the top of that tantalizing slit from above his pressed-together thighs.

Tony suppresses the urge to purr. “Perfect.” He moves behind the chair and starts taking pictures, ignoring the stir of arousal in his gut at the sight of the gorgeous omega as he does, throwing out occasional changes in position for him to follow.

Peter, for his part, is pretty demure throughout all the photos. He’s quiet — whether shy or afraid to speak, Tony doesn’t ask — but he doesn’t look sullen or make any faces to spoil the photos. He just complies with Tony’s directions, usually silently or with an occasional “yes, sir,” allowing Tony to direct and shoot him in a dozen different positions before allowing him to actually sit in the chair.

Feet on the chair. Legs crossed. Legs open. Spread your folds with your bound hands. One leg up, then the other. Knees bent. To your chest, pussy exposed wide without your fingers. Pull the sheer over it for a few shots. Hold the wand to it. Hands above your head. Hold still while I get shots of it resting there. Tied with the rope like it will be in the video. Lick the wand. Close your eyes and hold it there. Take off the slip. Repeat a few sultry shots without it.

Finally, he picks up the slip and helps the omega to his feet. “You can sit in the chair now. Put the slip back on for a few minutes.”

Peter nods and does as he’s told, and Tony watches, unable to help himself. He doesn’t find himself incredibly attracted to a lot of his clients, at least after so long of doing it, and what with his tastes being so specific… but Peter seemed to hit everything on the head, and god, it was a bit of a problem for him. He’s supposed to be setting up his camera right now, but instead he’s admiring the curve of the omega’s spine and his plump ass as he heads for the chair he’s going to tie him to and-

He snaps out of it. He’s going to shoot the video he’s being paid to shoot, and that’s it. No fantasies allowed. At least not until after when he’s jerking off to the memory of this.

He sets up his video camera, then returns to the little omega, waiting patiently for him to come to him so they could shoot the scene. Tony grabs some more of the pink rope, setting about tying the pretty thing down, wrists to the arms, ankles to the legs, back to the back, and the wand added with a loop through the middle tying his back to the chair, letting it sit perfectly against Peter’s pretty pussy. He tops it off with a blindfold, and purrs at the completed look.

“Perfect. I’m going to get a few more shots before we start filming. Just relax.” He can smell the omega starting to get slick, even just from the wand resting against his pussy. He definitely knows what’s coming. Even though it’s not Tony’s idea, or Tony’s omega, even, he’s getting slightly excited at the thought of being in control and being the one to do this to him.

He gets a lot more excited when they actually start.

He does. He can’t help it. From the moment he turns the toy on and watches the omega’s head loll back in pleasure, eyes fluttering under the blindfold, he’s rock hard in his pants, watching, smelling the omega’s slick as he goes from slightly wet to absolutely drenched and dripping down his own thighs by the third denial. And his moans… the way he meekly whines out for alpha and those little cries of pleasepleaseplease! when he’s on the cusp of orgasm… it’s pornographic, there’s no other word for how obscene and arousing it is, matched only by the way his lithe body squirms in his bonds, fabric around his eyes darkening from tears-

By the fifth denial, Tony is convinced he could probably come in his pants right now from this, if he let himself. He’s half-ass tempted to. The alphas that had brought him in have stepped outside, and Peter is slumped as much as he can be and panting in the chair, still blindfolded, just waiting for him to turn it back on. It would be so easy to rub himself to a quick and dirty orgasm out of any of their lines of sight.

He doesn’t. He turns the toy back on and lets his cock twitch and strain in his pants at the sound of Peter’s broken cry instead, finding this edging to be just as satisfying for him as how it’ll probably end for Peter. At least it’s fair.

One of the alphas that brought him in returns sometime around the eighth denial. He joins him off to the side this time.

“How many?” He sounds almost bored, eyeing the crying and squirming omega with minimal interest.

Tony tried to keep his voice even as he answers, despite the arousal threatening to roughen it. “When I turn it on again, it’ll be nine.”

“Good.” He nods, looking satisfied.

There’s a long moment of silence except for the pitiful whimpering of the omega. Tony breaks it again. “How many times am I supposed to deny him?”

“At least ten.”

“And then?”

The other alpha turns to him. “That depends on you, I think.”

“On me?” He can’t hide his surprise. The paperwork had said to be determined, yes, but he assumed it was to be determined based on what Peter could take. “What do you mean?”

The older alpha gives him a once over and purposefully scents the air before answering. “You want him. Don’t you?”

It’s not like there’s any way of hiding it, but his cheeks still tint pink. “Yes. Who wouldn’t?”

“Well, you have a chance at him before anyone else.” The alpha tilts his head. “How much are you willing to pay?”

“Excuse me?” Tony straightens. “Pay for what?”

“Him.” The alpha tosses his head in Peter’s direction.

Tony lets out a little breath. God, is it tempting, but he doesn’t need anyone else used whore, no matter how pretty he may be. “He’s pretty, I grant you, but I’m not paying to fuck an omega used by how many others before me. Thanks, but no thanks.” It sounded crude, but really. Why would he take a risk like that?

“He hasn’t been. He’s fresh meat.” The other male shrugs. “The shoot is for material to advertise him. He goes online for sale tonight… unless you pay me for him right now.”

Tony doesn’t need him to say it flat out to understand that his suspicions were right — there’s definitely something illegal going on here. And he has a choice.

But what kind of choice is it, really? He only knows two people’s names out of what is surely a ring, and in all likelihood, they’re fake names. These two alphas probably wouldn’t have shared this with him if they weren’t confident that he wants Peter enough to take it. And even the fact they were here and they did this shoot would be enough to get him in trouble, even if he turned it in himself. Not to mention the fact that they know his real identity. These two men or someone else would surely come back after him if he tried to turn them in — if they didn’t kill him flat out.

But if he bought Peter and kept quiet… it was better for him, better for business, and surely better for Peter. He couldn’t be as bad as whoever the boy would end up being sold to on the black market.

Tony meets his eyes. “How much?”

The alpha grins, pretending to think about it. “To have first go round at him? A couple grand. I’ll go back outside and let you have him until sundown, if you give us our material and the cash. To keep him? Well, I still want the photos for promotional material, but… a mil or two.”

Two whole million. For a pure, untouched, gorgeous, terrified omega straight out of his wet dreams.

Tony swallows. It’s hardly a decision. Not when he’s smelling how wet and ready Peter is sitting a few feet away and he knows he could have the money out of the bank as quick as a phone call. It’s not as if he doesn’t have it. “How soon do you want the cash?”

~~~

By the time Peter reaches the tenth denial, Tony officially owns him.

The two other alphas leave with a flash drive with the photos, the money in an account, and the promise that they’ll get the finished product of the video soon.

Soon, but not today, or the next couple, probably. He’s going to be a bit busy.

He fixes the angle of the camera so it’s situated mostly below the neck; the focus of it, of course, on the omega’s creamy open thighs, and the wet pussy forced open between them with the wand. Then he moves around, approaching the omega from the back while he’s slumped in the chair, panting and crying weakly.

He slides the blindfold off the omega’s wet eyes from behind, and Peter immediately straightens, tugging at his bonds. “H-hello? Alpha?” His voice is thick and raspy from crying.

“Hi, honey,” Tony purrs, setting his hands on the omega’s shoulders, enjoying the way he jumps at the touch as he runs them down his body. Deft fingers free the wand from its loop, and Peter sobs in relief.

“Oh alpha, thank you, gods- ngh- “

Peter starts to thank him for removing the wand, but chokes off with a broken cry when it returns, this time in the alpha’s hand. Tony smiles at the response as Peter’s head lolls back into his shoulder, turning it up a setting and shushing him gently at the sob that tears from Peter’s lips again.

He runs his other hand back up Peter’s body and settles it against his chin, grip firm on his throat, forcing him to keep his head back and on his shoulder. He drops his lips to the omega’s ear. “You can sob and struggle all you want to. I’m not going to let you come. And I’m not going to stop torturing you until you stop all of it. Don’t cry, don’t struggle, don’t beg me to let you ruin yourself. When you start saying please and thank you for the pleasure and for what I’m doing to you, and be a respectful, obedient omega, we might stop.”

“It hurts-“ Peter whimpers. “Alpha, daddy , please… I’ll do anything- oh- “ His face presses against Tony’s chest with a tortured cry. His thighs tremble viciously against Tony’s hand, back arching a little over the chair.

Tony feels a pang in his chest, but presses on. They have to finish this video before he starts going soft, at least. “You’ll sit still and be quiet. Here. I’ll even help you.” The hand not holding the wand in place comes up and covers his mouth, holding his head firmly against his shoulder. “Now be good, and I’ll make it stop.”

It takes time. Another few denials, kind of time, but it doesn’t matter. He has as long as needed. He’d given the omega an order, and he’d learn to listen, or they’d keep going all night.

Eventually, shaking and exhausted, Peter goes limp against him, eyes closed, pitiful little sobs audible but no words even trying to come from behind the alpha’s hand, still clamped on his mouth. Tony makes a triumphant little sound, and pulls the wand away. “Look at me, omega.”

Peter’s eyes flutter open, red and wet, fixing on Tony.

“Since you’ve listened, now, we’re going to be done. I’m going to take my hand off your mouth, and I want you to thank me. Don’t stop thanking me, and don’t say please, again, or we’ll stop until you can get control of yourself. Am I clear?” A nod against his hand. “Good.” He lets him go.

Peter takes a small breath. “Thank you.” His voice is barely a hoarse whisper.

“You’re welcome, omega.” Tony presses a kiss to his neck and lets the wand trail back up Peter’s thigh, suppressing a smirk at the way his breath hitches again. “Again.”

“Thank you, Alpha.”

“Good boy. Remember, don’t beg. Just be grateful.” He pauses, then slides the blindfold back on his eyes. He knows they want his full body in this shot, but he isn’t too keen on the possibility of the omega being recognized, either, knowing what he does now. Then he steps away just enough to tilt the camera back up, allowing it to get Peter’s face, and a small portion of his own neck and torso behind him.

When he returns, he takes his chin, turning his head toward the lens. “Look toward the camera, now. Think about how many people are going to see this, honey, and try show them how good you are. Let everyone see how pretty you look when you’re coming, just this once, before I take it all for myself.”

“Yes, alpha. Thank you, alpha.”

“Good boy.” With that, he turns on the wand again.

The omega’s body jumps visibly in the camera lens when the toy finds his swollen clit again. He lets out a broken little cry, but his hips don’t move, even as he starts to tremble again immediately. “Alpha- feels so good, Alpha, thank you- so close, Alpha, so close, thank you- oh god, oh- ngh- “

The force of the orgasm rocks his little body, and he nearly screams at the intensity before going completely limp in the chair again, clearly seeing stars, seeming to have blacked out.

Tony flicks the toy off and lets Peter’s head go, watching it fall to his chest as the omega pants and struggles to regain his senses. He walks over to the camera, taking it off its stand and coming closer.

He trails his fingers from the inside of Peter’s bound leg, up his core, pausing for just a moment to tease that oversensitive little bud, tearing a strangled cry out of Peter that he shushes, and then clear up to his face. He cups his cheek, stroking it as the omega’s unfocused eyes try to open under the fabric, clearly barely holding on to consciousness.

“You know you want one,” he murmurs, just loud enough to be heard. “So come get it.”

Then he shuts the camera off, setting it aside and turning completely back to Peter. It was time to get the omega home.

Taglist: @snowstark @serrabloodsong​

Let me know if you would like to be added! <3

#starker #peter parker x tony stark #tony stark x peter parker #his perfect model #my writing #starker fanfiction #starker fanfic #ironspider fanfic #ironspider fanfiction #ironspider #marvel alternate universe #marvel cinematic universe alternate universe #mcu au #photographer tony stark #nff #starker nff #model peter parker #tony stark/peter parker #peter parker/tony stark #starker moodboard #ironspider moodboard

[accio-kitty-malfoy]

New Fic

So, I got inspiration and started writing. It doesn’t have a title yet and the first chapter is relatively short, but I think I like the direction it’s taking itself in.

Please give me honest feedback. If I have written anything that you deem problematic please let me know and give me ways I can change it to improve it.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24633025/chapters/59514043

Rain pattered against the window. The sun had been blazing for two weeks without reprieve and everyone and The Burrow had been begging for even a small amount of rain or cool air. Mr Weasley was worried that his carrots, potatoes and rhubarb were going to shrivel up and his crop would be ruined, despite the watering charms he had put on them (he insisted that natural water was always better). Mrs Weasley was fretting about the heat ruining the cake she’d been painstakingly making for Ron and Hermione’s wedding and she swore that she was certain she’d seen one of the chickens faint. Hermione’s lists were practically disintegrating when touched and Ron had managed to get the worst sunburn Harry had ever seen. Ginny had been trying to practice for the Holyhead Harpies try-outs, but the ground had become hard and uncooperative and her hand were covered in blisters. Explosions and swearing could be heard frequently from the shed that George had built to start re-working on the Wheezes’ products, but he was adamant that the heat was making the magic temperamental. Harry helped everyone where he could, and it kept him busy.

 He was helping Ginny train when the rain came. He felt one drop at first, then another, and another. Then there was a torrential downpour and both him and Ginny stood where them were, shocked. The ground soon turned slippery with sludge and they both took the rare opportunity to let their inner child take over and they began pushing each other into the mud. When their sides ached from laughing and Ginny’s hair was brown from the mud, they went back inside. Harry had gratefully accepted a cup of tea and small plate of biscuits off Molly after a quick shower and Ginny had gone for a long soak in the bath that Harry had put on to run.

 The last few years had been hard. The war had ended, and they’d all grieved in their own ways. Molly had tried to keep everyone as close to her as possible. She had cried for days when Fleur and Bill had moved back to the cottage; believing that they were abandoning her. After a while she began to understand that they needed their space to heal and to try and be a married couple again. Ron and Hermione decided to stay at the Burrow under the condition that when they were married, they would move out. They’d been planning and building a small bungalow not far from The Burrow. Hermione and Ron had done the planning (Ron had drawn it all out) and they’d had help with the building from Dean and Seamus who had formed a construction business, gotten married to one another and adopted an ex racing Greyhound called Noodle. Neville had designed and planted a garden and small orchard.

 Charlie had stayed at The Burrow for the first year, then he’d gone back to Romania to begin rebuilding the Dragon Sanctuary. It had taken George the previous three years to heal enough to begin working on the Wheezes’ products again. He’d been dating Angelina for a year and he split his time between The Burrow and her flat in London. Harry had graciously accepted Molly’s offer to live with them at The Burrow. Technically he was the owner of both Grimmauld place and Godric’s Hollow, but he just didn’t have the drive to fix either of them up or face the memories that they held. Ginny and Harry had tried being a couple again for a while after the war, but they came to the realisation that they just weren’t right for one another. They loved each other, but they were not in love. Ginny devoted her time and passion to Quidditch, and she was better than Harry could ever have hoped to have been.

 The rain slowed steadily as Harry finished his cup of tea, nestled in the reading nook by the bay windows in the front room. He flicked his eyes to the door as Hermione walked into the room. She let him know that Molly was putting the food out on the table for dinner, then went to find everyone else. Ron was already in the kitchen, helping Molly set the table. He’d grown very fond of cooking after leaving Hogwarts and it was something that he loved doing alongside his mother. They’d made a pea and mint soup with fresh bread and pavlova with home grown berries for after. The family emerged from where they’d been working and relaxing and filed into the kitchen. They’d finally extended it using plans that Ron had drawn up the summer before. It made it much easier to fit everyone in and gave Molly more space to cook. It also had a magically enhanced pantry that kept each item of food in the specific conditions it needed to be in. The table and benches extended or shrunk depending on how many people needed to sit on it and spills magically disappeared. It was also fire resistant, which came in handy when Dean and Seamus stayed with them for a couple of months while their house was being finished.

 Ginny was the last person to enter the kitchen. She was wearing A tank top and shorts; her muscles twisting and tensing as she moved. Her waist length red hair was scraped back into a messy bun that flopped as she plopped herself down onto the bench next to Harry.

“Thanks for the muscle potion in the bath, my shoulders were killing me” She smiled at him before hungrily tearing off a chunk of bread and dunking it into the bright green soup. Harry smiled back and followed suit. The conversation flowed easily between the family. Ron and Hermione updated Molly about the finalisations of the wedding that was going to be held in three days’ time. Fleur and Bill were expected the next day and other guests would be arriving in the days after. Charlie was arriving late that evening due to an appointment he had that day. Arthur was thrilled that his garden had had a good watering and George was telling him about the breakthrough he’d had with a few of his products that day.

 After dinner Harry made himself another tea and went and sat outside. He was happy. He was at peace. But he knew that he would have to do something soon. He was growing bored of his nice existence. He knew he would have to get a job at some point and decide where he wanted to live. He had the choice of two inherited houses, or he could easily afford a flat, or even get Ron to draw up some plans for Dean and Seamus to build him a house. It was something to consider in the future. He knew that he couldn’t live off his inheritance and Molly’s kindness his whole life. He sighed and leaned back, cradling his tea between his hands. Ginny’s voice came from behind a nearby tree.

“You going to drink that, Potter, or just cradle it until it goes cold like you usually do?” She smirked and sat next to him. “Harry?” He looked up into her face. She looked apprehensive and took a deep breath. “I need you to do me a favour.”

“Sure, Gin, what is it?” His brow furrowed slightly, concern edging in.

“First I need to tell you something.” She sucked in another breath as if to steady the words that she was just about to say. “I’m not a girl. Harry, I think I’m non-binary. Or gender fluid. I haven’t quite figured it out yet.” Ginny dropped their eyes downwards and swallowed.

“Okay Gin,” Harry replied, “So what’s the favour?”

“I want you to cut my hair short. You’ve cut everyone’s hair in this house and it always looks awesome. Even Hermione’s, and you know she’s very particular about her hair, especially after the hairdresser that ‘specialised in black people’s hair’ messed it up so bad. I never thought she’d let anyone touch it ever again.”

“’Course I will Gin. How do you want it? We can have so much fun with it!” Harry could feel the excitement tingling at him.

“I’ll sleep on it. I want something edgy and awesome. Maybe some kind of quiff.” And they said that, they laid their head on Harry’s shoulder, contemplating different hair styles. He wrapped his arm around their waist and sipped at his tea. It was cold.

#drarry #nonbinary #ginny weasley #gay draco malfoy #bi harry potter #black hermione granger #asexual charlie weasley

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted Mid-Year Exchange: 2018, Part 2

Part two covers mid-year favorites from H. C. McEntire to Yuzo Iwata.  If you missed part one, check it out here.  

H.C. McEntire — Lionheart (Merge)

Who recommended it? Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it?  No. 

Ben Donnelly’s take: 

 Country music likes to provide bona fides in the lyrical details. Be it bad boy specifics of a truck model or coffeehouse ballads spiked with animal bones and rusty weathervanes, the singer signals that they know life out on the dirt roads. What's striking about Lionheart is how it delves into the particulars of a North Carolina life, from textile miles to chicory and gardenias. Indeed, nearly every song mentions the local flora, yet such details fall into place incidentally. McEntire describes places where nature is growing over every outbuilding and brick alley. There's a sense of discovery in theses settings where relationships with friends, family and a lover play out. All those vines were too common to notice until now, when love and the gratitude that follows make the mundane vivid.

McEntire longs for the present moment perfected, not a past reconstructed, and that's why her rootsy details don't have anything to prove. She’s comes to this twang a decade after playing the knotted indie rock also endemic to the region, a style that leaves nary a trace musically here. When she sings “I’m the clown who feeds the crows,” she’s both a figure in her natural habitat and someone who knows the other locals are smirking and murmuring, as she wanders on her own.

 Efrim Manuel Menuck—Pissing Stars (Constellation)

Pissing Stars by Efrim Manuel Menuck

Who recommended it? Jonathan Shaw

Did we review it? Yes. Jonathan said that a “mind-scrambling collision of plasticized media culture and geopolitical rapacity provides the thematic impetus for Pissing Stars.”

Bill Meyer’s take:

Words and notes are mere platforms; it’s the blasted, low-definition, high-contrast sound of Pissing Stars that hits you first and leaves a mark. Menuck (founder of Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Silver Mt. Zion) uses grimy sonic filters to amplify an emotional anguish whose extend deeper than the current geo-political situation. The album’s organizing preoccupation is a love affair between TV personality and an arm dealer’s coddled son, which caught Menuck’s attention when he was in his teens (he’s well into his 40s now).  The songs address love and money, and the impossibility of redemption and the yearning to transcend that impossibility, not as binary relationships but as far boundaries of a vast and incomprehensible field.  Menuck sounds broken and partially remade, awash in sounds made to match.

  Mesarthim — The Density Parameter (Avantgarde Music)

The Density Parameter by Mesarthim

Who recommended it? Ian Mathers

Did we review it? Yes Ian admired the way that Mesarthim, “seesaws from something even the staunchest, pettiest gatekeepers would have to admit are metal, to sections featuring patterns and instruments that, in a different context, would make perfect sense at a rave.” 

 Eric McDowell’s take:

“Safe to say that black metal’s got what it takes to make innocent listeners uncomfortable: the corrosive distortion, the pummeling drums, those terrifying roars — not to mention all that netherworldly symbolism, mythology and branding. But if Mesarthim’s keeping somewhat more experienced listeners (Bandcamp dabblers, Dusted midyear exchange reviewers) on their toes, it’s not because they’re doubling down on those tropes. It’s because they take such a free hand with gestures to genres that seem to take the legs out from under their black metal persona.

 Not to overstate the case: The music on The Density Parameter, the Australian duo’s third full-length, is plenty dark and crushing. But then there are the unsettling touches — the synthetic arena-rock drums and boxing-movie-montage keys of “Ω,” the bleeding-heart strings of “Transparency” or the ghoulish club beat of “74%.” To say that Mesarthim sounds like a band bored with convention is really to say that they sound pumped about the possibility of subverting it. And when they want to indulge, they can do that, too, as they prove in the album’s final overpowering minutes.  

  Roscoe Mitchell and the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra—Ride the Wind (Nessa)

Who recommended it? Derek Taylor

Did we review it? Yes. Derek said: “Flimsy idiomatic descriptors like jazz, classical and the like are irrelevant to the proceedings, replaced by the umbrella adjectival phrase of organized and energized sound.”

Jonathan Shaw’s take:

Adequately describing music this enormously complex, aesthetically confrontational and confident requires a technical vocabulary and understanding of jazz history that this reviewer lacks. For this 2016 set, Mitchell wrote and worked and played with the 19-piece Montreal-Toronto Art of Orchestra. Their varied instrumentation and dexterous, evocative playing create some dizzying experiences: see the transition out of the choppy clatter of “Splatter” into the lyrical grace of the first few minutes of the title track. From staccato, oddly percussive reeds to undulant brass and strings—it’s a sharp and then gorgeous progress.

A couple reference points occur: Mingus’s orchestral and ambitious Let My Children Hear Music (1972), especially the whirling, swirling “The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive-ass Slippers”; “A Brain for the Seine” (1969), a long composition by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, in which Mitchell has been a key player throughout its long and bewilderingly experimental existence. Those dates invoke the high point of the American free jazz avant-garde, and few personages loomed as largely, or productively, in that period as Mitchell’s.

That begs some questions: Can we still have an avant-garde in the early 21st century? Can a figure as established and prominent as Mitchell produce authentically avant-garde art? If the avant-garde is thought as a political and historically specific phenomenon, likely not; the postmodern and late capital have reduced those possibilities all but completely. But if by “avant-garde” we mean a style, and a style specific to jazz, then this music carries its mark and its intensity. It’s also lovely and bracing to hear Mitchell work through a new arrangement of “Nonaah” here, a song that recalls the mid-1970s cultural environment of its original composition and appearance in Mitchell’s oeuvre. The song caps this set, and in doing so insists that we hear history at work. Thanks, Derek, for recommending this stirring and provocative recording.

 Kacey Musgraves — Golden Hour (MCA Nashville)

Who recommended it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? No.  

Derek Taylor’s take:

“Jazz is dead” — it’s a declamatory provocation at once reductive, alarmist and cavalier that’s been floating around for the better part of a half-century, uttered by the idiom’s traditionalists, progressives and detractors alike. The same fatalistic phrase could equally and erroneously be applied to country music. Twenty-nine year old Texan Kacey Musgraves isn’t exactly a corrective to that combative line of thought and her brand of musical expression is fraught with certain stylistic choices (concessions?) that appear cardinal in this age of Country Music Awards commodification. But embrace of pop conventions has always been efficacious strategy going back to Countrypolitan, Western Swing and even The Singing Brakeman.  

Golden Hour, Musgraves’ fourth album, is reportedly a reflection of recently-found, matrimony-rooted optimism, audible in the gilded acoustic guitar melodies that serve as the skeletal frames for the songs around which a warm-blooded corpus of lap steel, banjo, drums and noninvasive keys is fleshed. Her voice is a modest wonder, musing on solitary afternoons leavened and enriched by the safety that comes in knowing that loving companionship is the current and foreseeable norm or using the kitschy metaphor of a “Velvet Elvis” to elucidate her lover’s left-of-center appeal. Apart from others of her age and ascendant success, she seems to cotton that the gifts of prosperity and stardom need not come through the mercenary espousal of whatever pop chart-calibrated admixture the A&R suits and million-bean counters deem worthy of exploitation.

  Olden Yolk—S-T (Trouble In Mind)

Olden Yolk by Olden Yolk

Who recommended it? Ben Donnelly

Did we review it? Yes. Jennifer Kelly said, “The vocals slide over one another like colored transparencies, creating shifting shades and moods.”

Ian Mathers’ take:

“Je suis les enfants/in the barrel of a gun” is a heck of a way to open an album, and the mix of the slightly sinister and the slightly baroque carries throughout the first Olden Yolk record. Which means, yes, building on that proud legacy of twee bands not afraid of the Velvet Underground, and I see those Clientele comparisons and can agree with them too. At points though I also think of early, spikier Go-Betweens. All of which is to say that the considerable charms and pleasures of Olden Yolk are coming from a distinct and well loved (if sometimes underestimated) lineage. There are discernible traces of psych-folk, jangle-pop, even a bit of the tang of the garage in there, but as with any act producing music worth paying attention to, here all those referents are just attempts to point at the contours of the very specific, individual thing Olden Yolk are doing. Whether it’s the brasher likes of “Esprit de Corps” or the lovely eternal sigh of “Gamblers on a Dime” or especially the forbidding sprawl and tangle of the closing “Takes One to Know One,” Olden Yolk build on the past with such verve and panache they never feel of the past.

  John Prine — The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy)

Who recommended it? Isaac Cooper

Did we review it? Yes, Isaac said, “Prine finds his warmest balance yet between boundless empathy and joking detachment.”  

Eric McDowell’s take:

Portrait of the artist as an old man, the cover of John Prine’s first album of original music in 13 years says it all. He looks a bit tossed around, sure, but sly as ever. He’s surrounded by darkness and wearing black, but his face glows. Perhaps he’s “seeing the light,” but he’s gazing right at us, eyes skeptical, mouth ready to crack an acid joke.  

On The Tree of Forgiveness, Prine’s intimate and gruff voice doesn’t so much guide us from light to dark as show us their inseparability. Often they’re embodied in the figures and narratives characteristic of Prine’s music. There’s the down-and-out beggar of the trucking-on opener, “Knockin’ on Your Screen Door” whose family “up and left me / with nothin’ but an 8-track / another side of George Jones.” On “The Lonesome Friends of Science,” there’s the poor washed-up Pluto, “once a mighty planet there / now just an ordinary star / hanging out in Hollywood / in some old funky sushi bar.” While other tunes have an earnest tenderness that makes us want to pin Prine himself as not only their singer but also their subject — the strings-saturated “Summer’s End” or “Boundless Love” (“If I came home, would you let me in / fry me some pork chops and forgive my sins?”) — that risky move is no more tempting than on the closer, “When I Get to Heaven.” “I’m gonna get a cocktail / vodka and ginger ale / and I’m gonna smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long / I’m gonna kiss that pretty girl / on the tilt-a-whirl / yeah, this old man is going to town”: The plan feels pure Prine, but it’s also sketched as a sing-along, inviting us to share in the fantasy.  

If everyone’s already pointed out that Prine’s always been this way, singing with wit about old age and death and wearing black since the early days, then I guess he’s done his job.

Alasdair Roberts, Amble Skuse & David McGuinness — What News (Drag City)

What News by Alasdair Roberts, Amble Skuse & David McGuinness

Who recommended it?

Bill Meyer

Did we review it? Yes. Bill Meyer said, “Turns out, the news is that Roberts has made the most unabashedly gorgeous record of his career.” Bryan Daly’s take: This inspired trio has shepherded both the songs and the traditional instruments on which they were played from deep in the past and conveyed them to the present, with all the care and fortitude it took to deliver news through the wild countryside in the age when they were written. An old Britain comes vividly alive not only because of the scholarly work that has been done in presenting them faithfully, but also because of the emotions that streak these songs with color. After spending some time with these characters in the world where they live and die, casual understanding of the song's history and meaning becomes insufficient. Digging through the archives for context becomes its own rewarding pursuit. But just as digging through the archives these days can mean typing few words into your phone, the world is another place from when these songs were written. Amble Skuse's subtle weaving of shifting modern noise provides the most sublime moments throughout, like the ambiguous but familiar clacking that opens the album. Is it a camera? A typewriter? A horse? What news is being prepared? Lest we forgot we haven’t slipped into the times when these songs were first sung, a familiar hiss and static of the current grounds us in the now.

Alasdair's ageless tenor also plays well against McGuinness's period instruments (grand piano, dulcitone), illuminating timeworn themes like betrayal and confused notions of honor. Characters are portrayed with such sensitivity that the dust that might have gathered on their stories has been shaken off in travel through time. When the players imbue such reverence for presenting the past as is done here, songs arrive freshly felt. The news travels fast, even through the space of hundreds of years.

 Caroline Rose — Loner (New West)

LONER by Caroline Rose

Who recommended it? Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it? No

Patrick Masterson’s take:

Loner leads off with a song called “More of the Same,” but such a description could hardly be less apt for Caroline Rose’s third full-length. In the wake of 2014’s I Will Not Be Afraid, Rose took her catchy but simple country-tinged folk, her insecurities and her formidable wit and lathered a thick coat of synth-tinged pop on it. Press materials cite Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears as inspirations, both of which seem like more than lip service (check the FutureSex/LoveSounds vibe of “To Die Today” and, well, this cover of “Toxic”), but perhaps the most clear pop parallel is on the significantly altered (and, hence, appropriately titled) “Soul No. 5,” where her shog-off attitude toward admirers recalls Nicki Minaj or peak-era Ke$ha before she dropped the dollar sign: “I like to hit ‘em and quit ‘em / That’s just my style,” she shrugs with flair.

Bang, bang and away she goes is right: Whether it’s this kind of forthright pop approach or something more serious (and seriously invested) like “Jeannie Becomes a Mom” – I’m still thinking about how she ends with “Now you’re in real life” reverbing out to the point that you can barely understand it before metaphorically clarifying right at the finish – and closer “Animal” or even the funny, cringe-worthy cat-call escalations of “Smile! AKA Schizodrift Jam 1 AKA Bikini Intro,” every song on here moves at a swift clip to showcase some point along the spectrum of Rose’s talent. Call in Britney, call in Ke$ha, call in Angel Olsen, call in The Replacements — none of it seems quite sufficient. Caroline Rose is a league apart and better than she’s ever been.

 Salad Boys — This Is Glue (Trouble in Mind)

This Is Glue by Salad Boys

Who recommended it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? Yes. Jonathan Shaw said, “The contrast of blithe pop with alienated, distraught lyrics is nothing new. This record reinvests that contrast with liveliness and complication.”

Patrick Masterson’s take:

The cover to This Is Glue is almost comically accurate, an album of pastel shades. Listening to “Blown Up,” which kicks off Joe Sampson’s 12-song, 45-minute-long sophomore LP under the Salad Boys name into gear with a propulsive indie-rock fling before segueing into “Hatred,” which… sounds like anything but, gives you the two major speeds of the record in just about nine minutes. So yeah: The Christchurch, New Zealander loads up on soft-baked indie jangle like it’s 1986. In one of Dusted’s first reviews this year, Jonathan described it as “compulsively listenable from the jump,” which is nearly as damning as it is praising. Put it on! Forget it’s on! And on and on and on.

But look at the album art closer and you’ll see the bright speckles of red and that smear of darkness to the left – there’s more going on than initially meets the eye. Same goes for the music; working harder to hear the details rewards multiple plays. Stuff like “Psych Slasher” or “Under the Bed” are fairly overt hits, sure, but there’s also “Scenic Route to Nowhere,” where Sampson’s accent is most evident and there’s this almost Oneida-esque stretch at three-quarters distance; the über-jangle of “Exaltation”; the frontier strings in “Dogged Out”; and “Right Time,” which had me remembering some of my earliest indie-rock encounters listening to 3WK and realizing I had no idea what I didn’t know. Trouble in Mind tells me these lyrics are “more claustrophobic and yearning” than 2015’s more upbeat Metalmania, but the way Sampson barely ever rises above an inside voice even at full emoting had me focusing harder on the guitar tones, frankly; in this way, Salad Boys’ closest analog to me isn’t whatever I forgot from the Left of the Dial box, it’s another Antipodean group increasingly lost to the salads of time: Ides of Space. I mean that as a compliment, and I almost never give stuff like this compliments. Eat up.

 Tove Styrke — Sway (RCA)

Who recommended it? Ian Mathers

Did we review it?  Yes, Ian called it, “ a perfect sparkling little showcase for how much the craft and delivery of this kind of pop song can matter.”

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

Um, yeah, Swedish electro-pop, not my favorite. Ian’s right, though, Styrke is good at what she does, imbuing glossy, focused-tested beats with soft, engaging humanity. “Sway,” one of the singles, has a big sweeping chorus, a sugary blast of “Swaa-aa-aay” that could melt the hardest heart, while “Say My Name” slathers staccato rhythms with giddy female empowerment. Styrke’s girlish voice has a nice touch of vulnerability to it, shading marketable hooks with recognizable human feeling. Production is immaculate, meticulous, air-tight, engineered for maximum impact. You could do worse, obviously. But really, when so many good, less commercially viable bands are vying for your attention, why spend time on stuff that’s doing just fine without you?  

 Yuzo Iwata—Daylight Moon (Siltbreeze)

Daylight Moon by Yuzo Iwata

Who recommended it? Bryan Daly

Did we review it? Yes. Bryan said: “these are deeply thrilling guitar-driven instrumentals with the room-live warmth and sense of play found on the Matrix Tapes, and mentally chasing a melody on any of these songs captivates fully.”

 Jonathan Shaw’s take:

It’s hard to know if “Gigolo” intentionally alludes to “Gigolo Aunt,” one of the most coherent songs on Syd Barrett’s eponymous final record of studio material. But Yuzo Iwata’s delightful tune has the same lively, blithely bouncy quality as Barrett’s, and it plays a similar role on Daylight Moon. “Gigolo” is a space of unadulterated joy on a record that’s otherwise redolent with more difficult feelings. The difficulties are suggested by variations in tone; the record’s instrumentation is invariably simple, with Iwata backed by a straightforward rock combo. That anchors the record in a consistent sonic vocabulary. But Iwata’s playing projects the record onto multiple emotional planes: the meditative lilt of “Up on a Dragonfly”; the foreboding, spaghetti-western shamble of “Border”; the gently somber “Goodnight, Daylight Moon.”

The most intense sounds on Daylight Moon assert themselves on the fuzzily metallic “Drone Beetle” (recorded in 1999, unlike the other songs on the LP, which date from September 2015), and on “Daylight Moon II,” easily the record’s most incendiary performance. It’s got an aching, terrible beauty, and it feels like the fiery catharsis that offsets the goofball charm of “Gigolo.” Both songs are terrific, but “Daylight Moon II” is more vividly present, Iwata’s soloing seeks transcendence. It gets there. I wish it were here longer.

#mid-year 2018 #h.c. mcintire #efraim manuel menuck #mesarithm #roscoe mitchell #kasey musgraves #olden yolk #john prine #alasdair roberts #amble skuse #david mcguinness #caroline rose #salad boys #tove styrke #yuzo iwata #midyear

[gaiatheorist]

Watering weeds.

Archimedes moment in the garden, I am literally and metaphorically watering weeds. I’m literally watering weeds because the omnishambles that is the UK social security system has me jumping through hoops when I’m sometimes barely able to stand. I’ve been pouring all of my energy into preparing for the ‘work capability assessment’ that should have taken place yesterday. It was cancelled with less than 24 hours before the scheduled appointment, but I’d already thrown myself so hard into the research and prep that I’d completely neglected the garden. On a practical level, the preparation is done, ready for the rescheduled appointment. The cynic in me thinks that the cancellation might be a psychological tactic, to make me give up, and abandon the pointless process. (It is pointless, I’ve read the ‘guidance for assessors’, with all the notes on ‘enabling’ paraplegics to use their more-functional limbs, and the ‘acceptable’ levels of involuntary bowel or bladder evacuations that don’t count incontinence as a functional impairment. That’s right, the UK government has an ‘acceptable’ level of soiling oneself.) I can mostly walk and talk for part of the day, I will be assessed as ‘fully fit’ on the basis of that, and have to start the draining and demeaning appeal process. 

I’m metaphorically watering weeds in respect of the ex-in-laws. I was already having a very shaky day, due to the build-up for the cancelled assessment, I really should have absented myself to avoid them, but I didn’t have a viable escape strategy. If I’d gone to bed, unwell, which I was, they would have clucked, and coo-ed, and imposed themselves, offering ‘help’ with the housework, or shopping. I don’t want them anywhere near me, and I certainly don’t want the mother-in-law ironing my underpants. (Yes, she irons underwear.) If I’d ‘hidden’ in the kitchen or garden, they would have followed me, they’re space-invaders, the kid is starting to realise that he needs to have his bags packed BEFORE they arrive, because they both hover-and-bother, Grandma invariably tries to ‘help’ him pick up his things, with her stench of dental-rot and perfume clinging to everything. She gets closer to us than we’re comfortable with, and we really don’t want her touching our things. Granddad touches things that don’t belong to him, too, he’ll pick up letters, bills, anything in his eye-line, I’ve started leaving ‘decoy’ objects on top of a cupboard, because he quite simply will not leave things alone. ‘Going out’ wasn’t an option, on bad days, I know I’m not safe to leave the house.

They blither in here, and touch stuff, and ask stupid questions, and make stupid observations, it always infuriated me, but, on bad days, I genuinely cannot deal with them. When the ex and I were ‘married’, there was more contact, it tapered off when I stopped going ‘out’ with him, and stopped going to their house for Sunday lunch. “They want to know why you don’t go any more, they think they’ve done something to upset you.” They had, it was ‘be them.’  I knew it was ‘just their way’, I knew that was how they cared for, and about people, but I’d pretended to be a ‘fit’ in their world for too long, the emotional energy of fitting my very square peg into their very round hole was too much. I wasn’t like them, and I didn’t like them, the ‘being nice’ and false-front, for the sake of appearances was more than I could bear, the ‘marriage’ had been dead for years, I needed the energy I was expending on ‘acting normal’ in front of them just to survive. 

Yesterday, one word that she uttered tipped my already-messy head into a spin. I could, quite literally, have punched a 4ft 11in pensioner-woman in the face. I didn’t, but I wanted to.

I’d sat in my alcove-’office’ when their car pulled up, it’s a physical distancing strategy, my grab-rails of furniture are also barriers, there’s only one path in to the office alcove, and the way the kid spreads out his various belongings and cables when he’s here makes it even more inaccessible. They can’t get in, and I don’t come out.

She knocked-then-came-in-anyway, had an obvious nosey at where I hadn’t dusted, or vacuumed, and noted that there’s still a pile of the kid’s folded laundry that he hasn’t taken upstairs. “Are you alright, duck? Where’s your MOTHER?” It was the way she said the word ‘mother’, their in-joke of pronouncing it ‘mither’ has never really been funny, and their concept of ‘mother’ has always been at odds with mine. I watered weeds for 20 years, trying to mother my son as I felt appropriate, whilst mothering theirs ‘to the standard to which he was accustomed.’ It damned near broke me. 

They are old fashioned. They are traditional, in the patriarchal sense. Men are to be ‘looked after’, and women ‘taken care of.’  I’m an in-between, non-binary creature, but my birth certificate says ‘female’, so I was expected to devote all of my energy to cooking, housework, and generally worshipping their blue-eyed-boy. I played at it for years, but it wasn’t me, I can’t ‘belong’ to anyone or anything, I’m a human being (ish), not a housemaid with holes in.

I realised this morning that I’m still watering weeds, I’m still placing myself below other people on my imaginary list of priorities. I was hanging my son’s bedding on the line to dry, he’d put his clothes-laundry in the machine himself, but, without grandma-chiding to ‘get those sheets off’, he hadn’t classed bedding as laundry. He’s in a routine when he’s at uni, he sends his laundry to grandma at the weekends, because she does his Dad’s, too. The ex has to be chased and chided to change his bedding, he has a 70-odd year old Ironing Gremlin ask for his used bedding every week, he needs reminding to do it every week, according to the kid. Their style of parenting has made the ex very lax, he has learned that, if you leave anything for long enough, someone else will do it. Their expectations and traditions meant that, for two decades, to keep the peace, I was the ‘someone.’ 

Hanging the kid’s bedding, because Grandma hadn’t taken it in, I ‘caught’ myself thinking “Hang it so the dog can’t piss on it.” I’m watering weeds, because the ex didn’t seem to care that his dog piddled on everything. Why would he care, eventually the smell-he-couldn’t-smell would drive me into action, on my hands and knees, scrubbing until my hands bled.

I’m still watering weeds in respect of the ex. I’m paying way over the odds for my phone and broadband because he only has one email address, with that provider, and I didn’t want to cause him inconvenience by asking him to set up a new one. I’ve asked now, and reminded, and asked him to confirm when he’s done it. I’m reliant on him to send me a contribution towards groceries now the kid is back for the summer, and I’ve run out of my own money. I’m still paying the insurance for one of his motorcycles, because I became bored of asking him to take the direct debit over to his own bank account. Sometimes he remembers to send me the money, sometimes he doesn’t, and he’s still sending me the amount for last year’s premiums, despite me telling him more than once that there’s been an increase. He doesn’t have to send me anything, there’s no formal agreement, and the kid is technically an adult now. Ironically, I’m now even more dependent on him than I was when we were ‘married’, and I hate it.

I hate pandering to him, so I’m not. I’m not ‘chasing’ him for the insurance money, or the grocery money, or the confirmation that I can switch phone-providers. I do not have the resources to water weeds, and ‘asking’ him for money grates against me more than sitting in the waiting room at the food bank. (He would HATE to know that I did that, he’d feel it was diminishing his status as man-provider, but then he’d just tell me again that he’s selling some of his motorbikes, and ask if it would be ‘easier for me’ if he paid the grocery-money into my bank account, rather than PayPal. It would be easier if he let me know a reliable schedule for when he’s going to pay it, it doesn’t matter where he pays it. He has the upper hand, yet again, and I hate it.)   

I’m watering weeds by not confronting the ex, by ‘being nice’ to the in-laws, by allowing the kid to leave used crockery all over the kitchen. I need to take control of the weeds before they strangle my produce. The produce in this instance is whatever is left of ‘me.’

[doomedandstoned]

A//TAR Perform “Arcana” Live at Ceremony of Sludge

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

It was the last live performance I attended in 2020, before orders were given by the Governor of Oregon to shelter in place. I'd heard about the novel coronavirus outbreak and the still mysterious disease it caused, COVID-19, but was crossing my fingers it hadn't spread too far into Portland yet. This was, after all, the annual Ceremony of Sludge! A tradition for nine years and counting, organized by Witch Mountain's Justin Brown. It brought together some of the most impressive new and long-standing heavy underground acts that the Pacific Northwest had to offer.

Everyone was in good spirits. No one had yet heard about the notion of social distancing, wearing masks, or taking that occasional sip from your buddy's beer. For one brief night, we could let our hair down (well, some of us who still have hair to boast of) and have a good time, as naive as that may sound in retrospect.

Four incredible bands took the stage on that March 6th eve at the World Famous Kenton Club, where I've shot many a show. On this Friday evening, I decided to leave the Canon at home and just let myself enjoy the music first hand, as so often my experience of live performances is through the lens (which I rarely peel my eyes from).

Today, Doomed & Stoned is premiering footage from that very night, revealing the song "Arcana" from A//TAR (or Alltar, should you prefer). If you haven't encountered them before, their sludgy-doom and post-metal stylings, with touches of atmospheric mysticism and Near-Eastern sound, establish the five-member outfit as truly one of a kind.

You'll recognize some of the members from other bands around town: Hound The Wolves, Tigers on Opium, Sixous, to name a few. The Portland scene tends to cross-pollinate a lot, which I suppose accounts for the creativity behind Alltar's unique sound.

I asked Frontman Juan Carlos Caceres about how these remarkable doom fantasias (and "Arcana," in particular) spring to life:

We have a pretty set in stone approach to writing our music. The musicians will compose riffs and string them together into a loose arrangement. However in this band, one of the creative choices we make is that Tim will title the arrangement. Once the music has a flow or is sounding like a song, they will pass it along to me and I will take that “title” and use it as the inspiration for the lyrical content and story of the song.

From there I’ll come in with arrangement ideas and help produce the song into its final arrangement by adding vocals/synths, and ultimately shaping how the song plays out from anything like needing things to be repeated for a certain length, to adding other sections that help the music sound like a song and not a string of riffs.

This can make for a long process to the end result, however with “Arcana” it actually came together very quickly. If I recall correctly it was two rehearsals. The song originated from a riff Colin brought to the table and the band spent a rehearsal coming up with some parts. They emailed it to me along with the title “Arcana”. I was deeply intrigued by this title and the fact that the word means secrets/mysteries. I quickly dove into writing the lyrics and had a full working version ready to go for the next rehearsal.

Deep in our genetic makeup, are the stories of centuries, the stories of evolution, the stories of failure, and the stories of progress. I gravitated quickly to this thought process and used the concept “Arcana” to tell the story of a message hidden deep within us, that guides us, whispers to us, but we are only aware of it through intuition and practice.

As to the meaning of "Arcana" and the influences driving the four songs on the setlist for the forthcoming album, 'Live At Ceremony of Sludge IX' (2021), Juan adds:

One of my favorite books is 'The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind' by Julian Jaynes. He proposed that the human brain existed in a bicameral state until about 3000 years ago. The theory is widely disputed but nonetheless I find the concept of our growth of consciousness fascinating.

There are hints of this in the lyrics, along with hints of evolving further into our next state of being. I really like to use phrases that portray a strong visual imagery that the listener can perhaps interpret in several ways. With this song, I wanted the listener to be curious whether we are in the past, present, or future.

Are we conscious automata? Are we free willed? Are we guided by things planted deep in our subconscious and genetic make up? Unlocking the mysteries of our consciousness and our DNA to propel ourselves into the next cycle of life, is what this song is about.

Performance Stills by Stephanie Savenkoff

Deep thoughts indeed to guide this deep cut from an album that will surely leave its mark upon you. "Arcana" is rich with esoteric atmosphere, enhanced by thoughtful instrumental details, brimming with attitude, carried by transcendent vocals that stir the heart with its cryptic creed.

Out February 12th, Alltar's Live From Ceremony of Sludge IX can be gotten on compact disc, as well as in digital format (pre-order here).

Give ear...

A//tar - Arcana

Lyrics

Messenger Show yourself Deep your roots plant themselves Further than time itself Unfolding

Whispering in my ear Only things I can hear Forever unknowing Unfolding

Library Circuitry Loops caught infinity Only you only me

Unfolding Unfolding Unfolding Unfolding

Mystery hidden deep in the sea Buried underwater effigy There is a message carved onto it Only one human can know of it Only one human can know of it

Open ocean Part ways for us all Open ocean Part ways for us all

All knowing Arcana Genetic permanence

DNA AND palindrome Mirrors speak in parables Offering miracles Unfolding

Splice open chromosomes Rewire what we know Binary in revolt Unfolding

46 deep in me 46 let me be Shadow step out of me

Unfolding Unfolding Unfolding Unfolding

Mystery hidden deep in the sea Buried underwater effigy There is a message carved onto it Only one human can know of it Only one human can know of it

Open ocean Part ways for us all Open ocean Part ways for us all

All knowing Arcana We are genetic permanence

All knowing Arcana

Some Buzz

Bring your pain, your loss, and your love and place it on the Alltar, as we honor those that came before us. Emerging from the Pacific Northwest region, Portland’s Alltar set out a two-fold reminder: one, of the potency behind a doom, sludge, and post-metal blend; and two, of just how good live music will be once it returns. After the successful release of their début Hallowed, the quintet’s next move is to release a live record commemorating a stunning set at Ceremony of Sludge in their hometown, which saw a stacked bill including Usnea and Brume shake The World Famous Kenton Club back in March.

“Ceremony of Sluuuuudge, baby!” comes booming through the speakers from vocalist Juan Carlos Caceres, whose amiable attitude contrasts with both the Ozzy-like wailing and harsher screaming - both of which hitting impressive peaks on “War Altar”. The lyrics draw from a wide range of topics; in the bands’ words, “the triumphs and tribulations of human-kind. From the technical and artistic birth of society’s achievements in art and technology, as well as the rise of power, war, destruction, and the control of humanity.”

Live at Ceremony of Sludge by Alltar

One unusual feature of this release is just how damn good the mix is for such a young band in a festival format. Aside from the vocals soaring and shrieking, the drums pop and crash, the bass rumbles with menace, and the cavernous rhythm guitars are hypnotic. The five work seamlessly to stir the genre-melding pot, the contents of which contain pinches of Neurosis’ Souls at Zero, Amenra’s Mass series, latter-day Elder, and Cult of Luna.

The record itself is akin to a beast that awakens - it starts with smooth guitar lines interwoven with Moog synthesizers on “Arcana”, while by the time “Cantillate” rolls around, there’s an unfolding crescendo of crunch. And then, just as the audience recovers from the devastating closer, a simple “thank you, we’re Alltar, Glasghote is up next!” It’s over in a short space of time, but that’s the beauty of live albums - there’s always the replay button.

Alltar is:

Nate Wright - drums  (Hound the Wolves, Tigers On Opium)

Tim Burke - guitars, samples  (ex-Boneworm, Hound the Wolves, Electric Ring, ex-Skull Island)

Colin Hill - guitars, samples

Juan Carlos Caceres - vocals, Moog synthesizers  (Tigers On Opium, ex-Sioux, Hound the Wolves, The Hungry Ghost)

Casey Braunger - bass  (He is Me)

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

#D&S Debuts #Alltar #A//tar #Portland #Oregon #doom #atmospheric doom #metal #Ceremony of Sludge #music video #Stephanie Savenkoff #photography #D&S Reviews #D&S Interviews #Doomed and Stoned

[jaimistoryteller]

Are you doing ok?

Honestly not really. 

This is under a cut for those who want to avoid it and cause it got a bit long:

1. According to the judge I went before for my disability hearing, I’m “disabled but not enough”

That same judge gave more value to people who have never met me opinion about whether I have a disability or not, rather than the many doctors and other medical professionals that said there is a problem. 

No never mind there are days I can’t stand, I can’t walk, days where the pain is so horrible that all I can do is take pain medication and sleep. There are days my depression is so bad that I can’t force myself past my front door because I know leaving the house opens me up to things going so much worse, or me making the wrong choice. 

2. I am car-less. Technically I have a car, it’s dead. Why? Because when I said there was a problem the men in my life, including my step-dad and mechanic said I didn’t know what I was talking about. Why not find another mechanic? Cause I had a warranty on the part through that one. I’m moderately certain that the only reason the mechanic thought I didn’t know what I was talking about is my step-dad convinced him I was exaggerating. Until it was proven I wasn’t. At which time the warranty was already expired and my engine fried out. So now I have no car. I 

It means I have to bike to do stuff. “But that’s so good for you!” sure it is, is the pain that comes with every press of the pedals good for me to? Is the inability to walk across my house the next morning because my ankle hurts so much it feels like someone is driving a searing hot rod through my ankle and leg also good for me? 

I like biking, I miss doing it for the fun of it, but I don’t think causing myself non-stop pain that last for hours, sometimes days, worth the very brief moments of pleasure I get from being on my bike. 

3. I get tired of bill collectors. I have no way to pay those old bills, but as they are non-essential I end up ignoring them. I live on commissions and ghost writing, which isn’t a lot of money, but it’s all I got available. I also take donations, but hate asking for them except in the times where things have gone horridly wrong. Like having my heat turned off because I am short on the bill in the middle of winter when it’s below zero outside. 

I have a page for commissions, donations, and my etsy

4. I am an introvert. I also deal with depression. I do not deal with clinical anxiety, so a lot of folks act like my depression isn’t a big deal. It still is a problem. My depression varies between a low hum (soft voice in the back of my head saying I’m worthless) to an ear piecing screech (literally by left ear buzzes like I am next to a ballast, and everything I do is worthless, that I am a complete failure who is a waste of space) with so many shades of gray in between. 

The depression and introvert aspects don’t mix well together. Particularly when I try speaking with people or putting myself out there and it just doesn’t do any good. I’m forgettable, or that’s the impression I get a lot based on interactions with others. No amount of reminding myself that 

5. I get folks who demand I update my stories or write things the way they want. News flash: being demandy and assholian isn’t going to get you anywhere. You want me to write or draw something in a style you like, or with the plot you want Commission it. Otherwise, you don’t get a say to what I write and how I write it. 

When I sign up for some event writing/arting project I will follow the guidelines but that still doesn’t give anyone the right to be an ass or demand something that fits their exact vision. 

Yo want to see updates on stories? Leave me a review, hell, leave me a :) it shows that someone read it and liked it, that I am not just dropping things into the void. After all, if I am just dropping it into the void, I might as well just leave it in my google drive folder. I know part of that is my depression making it seem worse, but that doesn’t stop it from racing through my mind.

6. I get tired of all the BS surrounding US politics. 

“Immigrants are violent”

“refuges are violent”

“Muslims are violent”

“Oh there isn’t systematic racism”

“All those unarmed shootings are unrelated, there isn’t a problem”

“It’s disrespectful the way those people are TakeAKnee during the anthem” 

“Transgender people shouldn’t be soldiers”

“Transgender people are going through a phase, mentally ill, just doing it for attention”

“Black Lives Matter is a gang, it should be All Lives Matter“

“Abortion is evil, but we can’t provide detailed sex ed or birth control, that’s evil too“

“White supremacists aren’t a problem, they just have a different view, if those other people weren’t confronting them they wouldn’t be violent“

“It’s (fill in the blank) fault that things are going wrong!“

“This is a Christian country, those other religions are bad, wrong, mistaken, violent, or any other BS“ 

The United States Constitution only applies when the white folks want it to, the rest of the time “those people shouldn’t act like that”

“Gun control means taking all my guns! I can’t let that happen.”

I could keep going but I’m pretty sure my point is made. Mention any of the above to most white folks, and they will feel that those points are all accurate. No never mind there is a lot of evidence otherwise. After all, if they admit there is a problem, that means it has to be dealt with, and gods forbid they do that.

I get so tired of people and their BS, particularly since 45 took office and things have gotten so much worse. I am so very frustrated. If I was the sort to feel shame, I’d be ashamed of the US. Of course, I don’t feel shame, never have, probably never will. 

Oh, lets not forget “she lost the election get over it” by people who are still pissy that the north won the civil war and carry around the “rebel flag”. I want to bitch slap folks like that. Stop being hypocrites you asshats. 

6. Toxic gender roles and the problems that come with:

Forcing people to suppress their emotions. Deny that they exist. 

Teach that men/male aligned folks are supposed to be aggressive, violent, pushy, dominant. That men/male aligned folks are supposed to always be right and refuse to admit when they are wrong. 

Teach that women/female aligned folks are supposed to be meek, submissive, prudish in public and sexually open to whatever a man wants in private. That they are suppose to always be the care givers. That their medical problems aren’t as important as a mans. 

Teach that transfolks are confused, mistaken, predators, ‘special snowflakes’, not worth listening to, freaks, have to conform exactly with a preset gender role that is different person to person or they are ‘invalid’. That non-binary people are a joke. 

Toxic gender roles makes the rape culture so much worse. It teaches men it’s their right to take whatever they want and damn the consequences. It teaches that the victims are to blame. It removes responsibility from the rapist. 

Toxic gender roles also leads to black and white thinking, the kind that leads to more problems than not. 

All of it pisses me off, and brews in the back of my mind rather regularly. Mostly because I see it all the time. I see it online, in town, when dealing with people. I see it in shows and hear it in music on the occasions I listen to live radio rather than my laptop. 

There are so many things that add up to piss me off, make my depression flare up, cause me physical pain, make my day to day life so damned hard that it becomes too much. So no, I’m not alright, I’m not okay, I live and exist but not much more past that. 

#about me #Anonymous #US Politics #rape tw #long and ranty

[beckettsthoughts]

1-100. Yes. All the questions cause I'm feeling generous and cause nobody ever asks me shit, so I'll ask others instead. Ur welcome~~~

Oh man, this is amazing! Thank you so much

I’m a huge fan of answering questions, so this really means a lot to me. It took a while, meaning some of these answers are in fact relevant to early this afternoon and not right now, but everything else is still accurate. It’s going to be a long ride, so I hope you’re ready ^^

1: Is there a boy/girl in your life?

There are several boys and several girls in my life, and a variety of non-binary people, none of whom I’m dating. My best friend is the #1 boy, though.

2: Think of the last person who hurt you; do you forgive them?

If I’m honest, yeah. Wouldn’t really want to be close with them again, but I can’t hold grudges. It’s just not nice or entertaining or fun, anymore, being bitter. Letting things go is the easiest route.

3: What do you think of when you hear the word “meow?”

I mean, I think of cats? Which is fairly obvious. Particularly the old cat that used to live next door to us who made a home out of our garden; his name was Tigger. Perhaps also the cat I used to look after when some of my neighbours went on holiday, who was called Bill. I’m actually allergic to cats, though, so aside from Bill I’ve done my best not to get too close to them.

4: What’s something you really want right now?

An acoustic guitar. Or a polaroid camera, but I’m actually getting that this afternoon.

5: Are you afraid of falling in love?

No, it just doesn’t really appeal to me. I’ve never had crushes, and I’m content with my close friends. I’m indifferent, really.

6: Do you like the beach?

Not really. It’s nice to go for walks along the beach in the winter, but the whole atmosphere of a hot, crowded beach loses its charm after living near one for so long. I don’t like the sea, because it hurts my skin, and sand isn’t much better. The sun gives me headaches, too. I’m not very outdoorsy, one could say.

7: Have you ever slept on a couch with someone else?

No. I’ve slept on a couch before, not often but a few times, but never with anyone else. It sounds uncomfortable, to be honest.

8: What’s the background on your cell?

Currently, it’s the souvenirs I bought from the Louvre. Before that, it’s always been landscapes from around the island.

9: Name the last four beds you were sat on?

My own, my mother’s, my best friend’s, and a hotel bed in Paris.

10: Do you like your phone?

Yes I do. My old one was on it’s last legs before I renewed my contract and got my current phone, I forgot what it’s like to have a phone that works properly. It has a decent amount of memory, it links to my laptop and it works better than any phone I’ve had in the past. So yeah, I like it.

11: Honestly, are things going the way you planned?

Surprisingly, yes. I really didn’t think I’d get to this point. I’ve been set on the path towards university since the age of eleven when I decided I wanted to be an author, and here I am with a ferry ticket to the mainland and an unconditional offer for a Creative Writing course. I finished my GCSEs, which were the toughest two years of my life, and I completed my A Levels, which were the best two years of my life. Back when I was fifteen I didn’t think I’d even live this long, let alone fulfil the plans I’d laid out for myself, but I think it’s happening. I’m so happy it’s happening.

12: Who was the last person whose phone number you added to your contacts?

My friend Alex, actually. I’d never had his number before I was invited into a group chat with him, so that was the last contact I made on my phone.

13: Would you rather have a poodle or a rottweiler?

A poodle. They’re so fluffy and they seem like really sweet dogs. I have a lot of fond memories of having toy poodles in Nintendogs, but in real life I think I’d like a miniature poodle the most.

14: Which hurts the most, physical or emotional pain?

Emotional pain, by far. Can’t take painkillers for a broken heart like you can for a broken bone.

15: Would you rather visit a zoo or an art museum?

Probably the zoo. I love art museums, I do, but I love conservation zoos a lot. I’ve been to two particular zoos several times, Durrell Wildlife Park (now just called Jersey Zoo) and also Marwell Zoo, both of which do amazing work in caring for and helping re-establish endangered species. I know zoos have a lot of ethical problems, but if you can find a trustworthy zoo that focuses on research and conservation I think it’s justifiable.

16: Are you tired?

Not really. The summer is one of the few times I can actually get enough sleep.

17: How long have you known your 1st phone contact?

My whole life.

18: Are they a relative?

Yeah, it’s my mum.

19: Would you ever consider getting back together with any of your exes?

Don’t have any exes, but if I did I’d probably say no.

20: When did you last talk to the last person you shared a kiss with?

Again, never had a kiss in the romantic sense. In a non-romantic sense, my mother, and I spoke to her this morning.

21: If you knew you had the right person, would you marry them today?

No, even if I had a “right person” I’d want to get through university at least before marrying them.

22: Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

No answer for the romantic context of kissing, but on the platonic side again it’s my mother so again, yes.

23: How many bracelets do you have on your wrists right now?

Two; a woven rainbow friendship that a friend gave me and also a black faux-leather cord bracelet.

24: Is there a certain quote you live by?

Per aspera ad astra. Through adversity to the stars.

25: What’s on your mind?

The appointment I have this afternoon. I’m getting kind of anxious about it.

26: Do you have any tattoos?

No, but I would love some florals.

27: What is your favourite colour?

I don’t have a single favourite colour, but I really like pale oranges and dark purples.

28: Next time you will kiss someone on the lips?

No idea.

29: Who are you texting?

My best friend, @skyward-sheik. He asked about making an angsty vampire playlist, so now I am sending him song suggestions.

30: Think to the last person you kissed, have you ever kissed them on a couch?

I’m genuinely considering ignoring most of the ‘kissing ones’, now.

31: Have you ever had the feeling something bad was going to happen and you were right?

Uh, yeah. Many times. I can’t think of a specific occasion, though, but I know it’s happened.

32: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex you can talk to?

This is a complicated question, for me. I don’t technically have an opposite gender and I don’t really think in terms of opposite sex, but I have plenty of friends who differ from me in one or both aspects. Like, most of my friends, probably. I am friends with plenty of other non-binary people too, though, it’s just that most of the people I know are cis or binary trans, which is different to me.

33: Do you think anyone has feelings for you?

I’d be surprised. Literally only one person has ever had feelings for me and that was when we were like, twelve.

34: Has anyone ever told you you have pretty eyes?

Surprisingly often. I don’t think they’re particularly remarkable, but they’re quite bright blue. They can look especially bright, depending on my hair colour at any given time. I like them.

35: Say the last person you kissed was kissing someone right in front of you?

No comment.

36: Were you single on Valentine’s Day?

Always, but my best friend wished me a happy Valentine’s and I wished him the same in return.

37: Are you friends with the last person you kissed?

No comment. Sorry, there are a lot of questions about kissing that I can’t really answer.

38: What do your friends call you?

Beckett, or Becks for short. I also get B, Bucket, and Pineapple, all of which I’m very fond of.

39: Has anyone upset you in the last week?

My stepfather. But that’s like, daily.

40: Have you ever cried over a text?

Yeah, I’ve had some pretty brutal ones. I’ve spent lot of time crying over texts and messages, but thankfully not very recently.

41: Where’s your last bruise located?

My right shin.

42: What is it from?

Bashed it against a table-leg. Surprise, surprise; those things are lethal.

43: Last time you wanted to be away from somewhere really bad?

The last time I wanted to escape was on the ferry back from my last holiday. I have a phobia of sickness, emetophobia, and I started feeling seasick halfway through the two-hour journey. I rarely get seasick any more because I have over-the-counter medications for it, but my usual brand were unavailable and this new and supposedly better brand clearly didn’t do it’s job. I had to go out on deck in the freezing cold, without a coat, and stay there for the last half hour of the trip. I was shaking both from the cold and from the fear, and I honestly would have given anything right then to be on dry land.

44: Who was the last person you were on the phone with?

I really hate phone calls. My mother is the only one who’ll call me despite knowing this. So, her.

45: Do you have a favourite pair of shoes?

My lace up boots are one of my most prized possessions.

46: Do you wear hats if you’re having a bad hair day?

I wear hats even when I’m having a good hair day. But yes, I definitely wear hats to hide it when my hair won’t behave the way I want it too.

47: Would you ever go bald if it was the style?

Yeah, probably. I already want to buzz my hair really short at some point, shaving it completely feels like the logical next step. I’d probably only do it if it was a really huge trend, though.

48: Do you make supper for your family?

Uh, no. I make food for myself, every lunchtime, but my mum makes tea in the evenings. I don’t think they’d let me cook for them, in all honesty, I don’t have the best track record when it comes to making food.

49: Does your bedroom have a door?

Yes, thankfully. I don’t know if I’d be able to cope without one. I mean, with the amount of times people walk right in without knocking it may as well not have one, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

50: Top 3 web-pages?

Tumblr, Youtube, Google Drive.

51: Do you know anyone who hates shopping?

Not off the top of my head. I’m sure there are people I know who hate it. I hate it, depending on the type of shopping. Shoe shopping is the ultimate adversity, I think, but regular food shopping is a close second.

52: Does anything on your body hurt?

Not really, right at this moment. I have a mouth ulcer that’s been painful for the last week or so, but it’s pretty much healed now.

53: Are goodbyes hard for you?

Yes and no, it really depends. It’ll be hard to say goodbye when I move off the island in September, though, that’s for sure.

54: What was the last beverage you spilled on yourself?

Water, thankfully. I don’t drink much else.

55: How is your hair?

Pretty messy, underneath my hat. I’m going to style it properly before I go out this afternoon, though.

56: What do you usually do first in the morning?

Check my phone, drink something, and then go through my morning skincare routine.

57: Do you think two people can last forever?

Yeah, but it’s very dependent on circumstances.

58: Think back to January 2007, were you single?

Yes. I was also eight years old, so it’s not much of a surprise.

59: Green or purple grapes?

Purple grapes.

60: When’s the next time you will give someone a big hug?

I expect I will hug my nan before I go down to the bus stop, so in about half an hour.

61: Do you wish you were somewhere else right now?

I wish I was in Los Angeles, always.

62: When will be the next time you text someone?

I will text my mother to let her know I’m on my way to meet her.

63: Where will you be 5 hours from now?

Probably where I am right now, on my corner of the sofa. I’m going out soon, but I’ll be home by then.

64: What were you doing at 8 this morning?

Sleeping.

65: This time last year, can you remember who you liked?

Never had crushes, but obviously I liked people in the platonic sense. Most of them I still like now.

66: Is there one person in your life that can always make you smile?

Yes, and that person is @skyward-sheik. I’m also going to give this to @clarinooty, who is a veritable ray of sunshine.

67: Did you kiss or hug anyone today?

Not yet.

68: What was your last thought before you went to bed last night?

I was thinking about the story I’d just been reading, and also about my plans and schedule for today.

69: Have you ever tried your hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end?

Yes. In a work sense, this is always happening, but I’ve also experienced this with friendships before.

70: How many windows are open on your computer?

How many windows? Like 3. How many tabs though? 29.

71: How many fingers do you have?

Eight fingers and two thumbs, the whole set.

72: What is your ringtone?

Boulevard of Broken Dreams, but my phone is always on silent and do-not-disturb so I rarely hear my ringtone.

73: How old will you be in 5 months?

Nineteen.

74: Where is your mum right now?

At work.

75: Why aren’t you with the person you were first in love with or almost in love?

Never been in love, so I can’t really answer this.

76: Have you held hands with somebody in the past three days?

No, I don’t think so.

77: Are you friends with the people you were friends with two years ago?

Most of them, yeah. I actually met my best friend just a little bit over two years ago, and look at us. There have been a couple of pretty significant changes, but I feel like the two of us are stronger than ever.

78: Do you remember who you had a crush on in Year 7?

Again, doesn’t really apply.

79: Is there anyone you know with the name Mike?

No, weirdly enough.

80: Have you ever fallen asleep in someones arms?

I’m sure I have, when I was younger. Pretty sure most people do when they’re like, babies and toddlers. Not since then, though.

81: How many people have you liked in the past three months?

In a crush sense, nobody. In a platonic sense, too many to count.

82: Has anyone seen you in your underwear in the last 3 days?

No.

83: Will you talk to the person you like tonight?

I will talk to a person I like, in a friendship sense. I talk to my friends every night.

84: You’re drunk and yelling at hot guys/girls out of your car window, you’re with?

I don’t really get the wording of this? I guess it means who would I be with? I don’t drink, but if I did I would probably be with my best friend and our other two close friends.

85: If your boyfriend/girlfriend was into drugs would you care?

Yeah, I would. Probably not if it was just like, weed, but anything else I would be pretty unhappy about.

86: What was the most eventful thing that happened last time you went to see a movie?

Uh, I can’t think. The last movie I saw was Wonder Woman, but there was nothing eventful that happened when I went to see it. I don’t know if our grotty little cinema could cope with eventful happenings, if I’m honest.

87: Who was your last received call from?

My mother.

88: If someone gave you $1,000 to burn a butterfly over a candle, would you?

No, I’d feel awful.

89: What is something you wish you had more of?

Money, which is the obvious answer, but also musical instruments and cool gadgets.

90: Have you ever trusted someone too much?

Yeah. Way too much. I would say I’ll try not to make the same mistake again, but I’m pretty easily trusting. Having all of my insecurities thrown back in my face was the worst feeling in the world, though.

91: Do you sleep with your window open?

No, I can’t stand open windows. It’s just like, willingly inviting annoying insects into your room.

92: Do you get along with girls?

Yeah, usually I do. Pretty much all of my friends in school have been girls, because I naturally tend to gravitate towards them. They’re much nicer than most of the boys at my school were, and I found them way easier to speak to and joke about with. I have a mix of friends now, but yeah. I get along with girls.

93: Are you keeping a secret from someone who needs to know the truth?

No, not that I can think of.

94: Does sex mean love?

Not inherently, no.

95: You’re locked in a room with the last person you kissed, is that a problem?

No comment.

96: Have you ever kissed anyone with a lip ring?

No comment.

97: Did you sleep alone this week?

Yes, just like I have every week of my life.

98: Everybody has somebody that makes them happy, do you?

Yeah, I mentioned already but my best friend is that for me. He can lift my mood just by saying hi, you know?

99: Do you believe in love at first sight?

Nope.

100: Who was the last person that you pinky promise?

I don’t think I’ve made a pinky promise since primary school, meaning it was probably my best friend at the time. He’s still a very good friend of mine now, but I couldn’t possibly remember what our last pinky promise would have been about, or whether or not we kept it.

#b replies #long post #ask meme

[click2watch]

‘Doctor Doom’ vs Crypto: Here’s What to Expect in Congress Today

Famed economist Nouriel Roubini plans to strike a fiery tone on cryptocurrency and blockchain before a group of U.S. senators on Thursday.

Roubini will testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs alongside Coin Center director of research Peter Van Valkenburgh in a hearing entitled “Exploring the Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Ecosystem.”

Announced last week, the hearing marks the latest move by members of the U.S. Congress to better understand the emerging technology and asset class.

In prepared remarks published Wednesday, Roubini, who was given the nickname “Dr. Doom” for his predictions about the 2008 financial crisis, plans to come out swinging, arguing cryptocurrencies are not a viable unit of account, means of payment or store of value.

Among the arguments: Roubini contends that “wealth in crypto-land is more concentrated than in North Korea, where the inequality Gini coefficient is 0.86.”

The Gini coefficient is a measure of economic inequality and works by comparing income distribution (or possibly wealth distribution) among a population, according to Investopedia. The coefficient can range from 0, or perfect equality, to 1, or perfect inequality.Bitcoin’s Gini coefficient is 0.88, he said, though he did not reference how he established that number.

In contrast to Roubini’s rhetoric on “a failing set of technologies,” Van Valkenburgh’s prepared testimony argues that “decentralized computing” can prove beneficial in a number of different use cases, provided lawmakers and regulators allow developers to experiment with the technology and grow the space.

Van Valkenburgh’s testimony pushes back against some of the hype surrounding the space as well, noting that blockchain “is not” a “solution to any number of social, economic, organizational or cybersecurity problems.”

It even goes as far as to say that the phrase “‘blockchain technology’ is a vague and undefined buzzword.”

His tone strikes a stark difference from Roubini’s, calling for “a light-touch approach” to regulation, similarly to how former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s administration approached the development of the internet.

Elsewhere, Roubini notes that “blockchains can make sense in cases where the speed/verifiability tradeoff is actually worth it,” but adds that “this is rarely how the technology is marketed. Blockchain investment propositions routinely make wild promises to overthrow entire industries, such as cloud computing, without acknowledging the technology’s obvious limitations.”

Ongoing conversation

The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee has discussed the cryptocurrency space before. Earlier this year, the committee saw U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Jay Clayton and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chair J. Christopher Giancarlo testify on what their agencies saw as pressing needs for regulating the space.

While Clayton said at the time that the securities regulator may ask for legislation approving additional oversight on the space, neither the request nor any such legislation has materialized to date.

In fact, while there are a number of bills sitting before the Senate and the House of Representatives, few have been signed into law so far.

That hasn’t stopped startups from launching tokens or working toward building the “Web 3.0,” inspiring much of Roubini’s previous pushback.

Nor has Roubini held back in the run-up to the hearing.

On Twitter, the economist has blasted cryptocurrencies and the space in general, saying in one tweet that “Decentralization in crypto is a myth … miners are centralized, exchanges are centralized, developers are centralized dictators (Buterin is “dictator for life”).”

In another tweet, he piled on, saying that “calling this crappy garbage of 1000s of alt-coins – that lost 99 percent of their value since peak – as ‘shit-coins’ is a grave insult to manure that is a most useful, precious and productive good as fertilizer in agriculture. So apologies to manure for this offensive comparison.”

(He also apologized to the Senate committee for using the word “shitcoin,” but noted that it was a commonly used “technical term” in the space, citing a Google search.)

On the other side of the debate, Van Valkenburgh concludes in his remarks:

“Just as few would have predicted the emergence of Facebook or Uber given only an understanding of the internet circa 1995, it is impossible to know what creative and diverse minds will build when offered a free and public platform for experimentation.”

Roubini image via Prometheus72/Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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[legit-scam-review]

Bitcoin’s Next Big Software Upgrade to Feature New Language for Crypto Keys

Bitcoin may be hard to use even with consumer-friendly tools, while running its core infrastructure is even harder. However, this isn’t stopping efforts to change that.

The global, volunteer developer group behind the most popular implementation of the software, Bitcoin Core, is soon to debut its 17th major software release, one which puts to code a number of highly-anticipated changes. Of particular emphasis is improving the software’s default wallet, where user’s bitcoin private keys are stored.

Perhaps the most interesting update is the debut of a new “language,” initially proposed by prominent bitcoin contributor Pieter Wuille, known for designing some of the most radical changes to bitcoin in recent years (including Segregated Witness, which helped chip away at bitcoin’s scalability problem last year).

The idea behind the new language is to add important extra information to keys. Or, as Bitcoin Core contributor Andrew Chow put it, it provides a “sane” alternative to the problematic “account” system that was recently ripped out of the software. Simply put, it allows users to name their different accounts. Like labeling one “donations” and another “savings.”

One other significant use case of the language is to make it easier to move keys from one wallet to another. As it stands, if a user tries to move a key from one wallet to another, they might lose some of the information about how the coins can be unlocked and sent to someone else.

That’s not a big problem for many transactions. After all, most transactions have pretty simple instructions: the owner must sign the transaction with a secret key, proving the coins are really theirs. But that’s not true for every transaction. For example, multi-signature transactions require more than one person to approve any spending.

Lightning transactions, a faster and more scalable type of payment that’s still in its infancy, are perhaps the most exciting example of this.

With this type of transaction becoming more common (lightning is thought to be the best way for the platform to scale to millions of users), the new language aims to ensure crucial information isn’t lost more regularly.

With this in mind, Wuille’s new language aims to tags each key in bitcoin (both public and private) with a “label” that describes what can unlock it, “changing the way we think about wallets,” Chaincode engineer John Newbery said in a talk describing the upcoming release.

To be clear, though, this release is just a small step, the first code change to put this into practice, Newbery said. But developers anticipate the language will weave its way through the codebase in future software releases.

Mobile bitcoin core?

Other changes in the latest release are iterative, first steps that developers hope will lead to something more.

Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT) are another highly-anticipated change that fits the bill, coded up by Chow. (PSBT is a new format for transactions that are not fully signed yet that can be passed around until finally broadcast.)

This all sounds rather technical, but the thinking here is actually rather forward-looking, and could have an impact on a wide range of users.

Already, there are all sorts of hardware wallets on the market, small mechanical devices that are considered one of the safest ways of storing bitcoin, since it moves the keys that unlock them offline so they can’t be stolen by way of an internet connection.

But each hardware wallet – including Trezor, Ledger, and so forth – is kind of off in its own little world when it comes to how it engages with the software. In short, they aren’t compatible with all software wallets at once.

One of the easiest ways to use a hardware wallet is to leave it offline, but then connect it to a software wallet on a mobile device that makes it easy to actually make transactions.

It’s cool that this is possible – to get the security of hardware wallet but the convenience of a software wallet at the same time. The problem is that usually each hardware wallet only includes support for one or two software wallets. Trezor only supports the software wallet Electrum, for instance. They can’t connect the Trezor to Bitcoin Core or whatever other software they want to connect to.

And users have long been complaining about how annoying this is. BIP 174 offers away around that. It’s a standard that every wallet can use.

Though, of course, it depends on whether wallets actually indeed choose to use it. The prospects are looking optimistic so far. Even though the code isn’t officially out yet, it’s attracted much enthusiasm, with one hardware wallet, coldcardwallet implementing the transaction signing method already.

As wallets pick up this standard, it will make Bitcoin Core in particular a bit easier to use because hardware wallets will easily be able to connect to the software.

“PSBT will enable Bitcoin Core to more easily support hardware wallets and have better offline, airgapped wallet setups. I’m actually working on hardware wallet support for Bitcoin Core by using PSBT,” Chow told CoinDesk, going as far as to argue that Bitcoin Core is a much safer way to use bitcoin than other software wallets.

“[SPV wallets] carry privacy and potentially security risks as they are trusting a third party to do the blockchain verification. Once Bitcoin Core supports hardware wallets, users can use Bitcoin Core instead, and because it is a full node, the user does not need to trust a third party that the everything has been verified correctly,” he said.

But the code change opens up a lot of options, even potentially boosting bitcoin smart contracts and privacy features. “PSBT also makes things like multisigs and CoinJoins easier to do,” Chow continued.

To this end, one user tweeted: “Excited to see all the interesting ways BIP174 will be used.”

And more

These are a couple of the changes developers are most excited about, but there are dozens of other upgrades rolled into the release. One is a “dynamic wallet creation” feature.

“A few releases ago, we introduced the ability to use multiple wallets in Bitcoin Core. However that required starting Bitcoin Core configured for multiple wallets. Now, we can load, unload, and create wallets when the software is already running,” Chow said.

Meanwhile, you might have heard of Coin Selection, an improved way of plucking up the coins go into a transaction. It’s so much better than the old algorithm that it greatly improves bitcoin’s scalability as a whole, even cutting fees.

Though the main code for the new feature was already added about six months ago, the algorithm is getting a small privacy boost in the 17th release.

That still doesn’t cover everything. The rest of the changes are to be described in more detail in the final release notes, which will be released at the same time as the final, tested code.

These might seem like small changes. Especially since few people use bitcoin and even fewer use Bitcoin Core. And there’s no question why. Bitcoin’s software takes up nearly 200 GB, about the size of a laptop. Downloading it and using it is a far cry from downloading and setting up the Venmo app on a smartphone in matter of minutes.

But the goal with these major code changes is to eventually get the code to the point where it’s not such a pain to set up, so maybe one day anyone who wants to utilize the full advantages of bitcoin can do so.

Locks image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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[dorothydelgadillo]

9 Coding Schools With Scholarships, Grants, or Alternatives to Full Tuition

If your current job has you driven to the brink of career change and you’re looking at tech as a way out, the good news is that the path to tech skills is a relatively short one. In other words, start thinking about a career change to tech as a matter of months—not years. When it comes to picking up those tech skills in a timely fashion there are a number of ways to go about it, including free online resources, paid online classes, and in-person coding bootcamps. While online options tend to offer the most flexibility as far as time and scheduling, if you think you’re the kind of person whose learning style meshes best with an on-campus bootcamp, don’t worry—you still won’t have to deal with the kind of time-sink associated with a traditional college. However, in-person bootcamps tend to be among the pricier alternatives for learning to code. And because coding schools aren’t accredited universities with Pell grants and state scholarships on hand, it might seem like you’ll have to pay your whole way out of pocket.

But this isn’t always the case. Plenty of bootcamps offer scholarship opportunities for women and marginalized groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in the tech industry, and there are alternative school models that allow you to bypass the need for bank-breaking tuition payments all together. In order to give you an idea of what’s out there, we rounded up a list of nine coding schools that offer ways to keep more of your money in your bank account while still picking up the bankable skills you need.

1. Codeup

Codeup is a full-time, in-person, coding bootcamp school located in San Antonio, TX. The program focuses on preparing students for work as junior developers and advertises an employer partnership network of over 100 businesses that help create job opportunities for graduates. Codeup offers a number of scholarships, including Codeup’s Women in Tech scholarship (which awards three scholarships per enrollment period based on merit, admission scores, and application answers, with one recipient receiving $5,000 toward Codeup’s $22,500 tuition and two recipients receiving $2,500 each), a veteran’s scholarship (which awards $1,000 toward tuition to any student who can provide proof of military service), a first responder’s scholarship (which pays $1,000 for tuition for any student who provides their first responder’s certification), and a relocation scholarship (awarding $1,000 toward tuition for any students relocating to San Antonio and willing to remain in the city for one year after graduation).

2. Recurse Center

New York City’s Recurse Center bills itself as “a self-directed, educational retreat for programmers.” Comparing itself to a writer’s retreat or a work sabbatical, the Recurse Center offers six, 12, and one week long “batches” where applicants immerse themselves in coding projects of their own choosing with the support of their fellow batchmates and Recurse alumni. Recurse Center is open to programmers with all levels of experience (the Recurse Center describes their applicants as having a range from six months to 30 years of experience), but some previous programming knowledge is required.

The Recurse Center is free to attend (their business model involves getting paid by partner companies in exchange for access to hiring Recurse Center alumni), though the costs of housing for six to 12 weeks in New York City still apply. In order to help with these costs, Recurse Center offers need-based living expense grants for women, trans, genderqueer, and non-binary people, and other groups that are underrepresented in the tech industry—including Black, Latinx, Native American, or Pacific Islander. Those who qualify for grants are able to submit the amount of money they need in order to attend the Center and a brief explanation of why they need a grant. Grant requests are confirmed no later than two weeks before a batch begins (though due to budget constraints may not be able to cover an applicants entire request), and funds are allocated during the first two weeks of a batch.

3. The Grace Hopper Program

The Grace Hopper Program is a bit different than other scholarships or grants—it isn’t a fund that can be applied to a school or classes, it’s an actual affiliate of Fullstack Academy (an immersive coding bootcamp with locations in New York City and Chicago). Through the Grace Hopper Program, female identifying applicants (including transgender, genderqueer, and non-binary individuals) can attend a 17-week software engineering course at Fullstack’s New York or Chicago locations, or online, with no upfront tuition. The Grace Hopper Program uses a JavaScript-focused curriculum to teach fundamental computer science skills including HTML & CSS, JavaScript frameworks, and SQL. To keep pace with the program, some coding experience is required, but if applicants can’t pass a preliminary assessment, the program will provide resources to help them get up to speed. Payment for the program is not due until graduates land a job, at which point the $19,610 tuition is paid back on a nine month installment plan.

4. Flatiron School

Flatiron School is a coding bootcamp with in-person software engineering and data science programs, and an online web developer program. Flatiron has campuses in New York City, Washington D.C., London, and Houston, TX. Outcomes reporting is a big part of Flatiron’s marketing—in the more than five years since they started implementing independently verified outcomes, Flatiron has published outcomes for every student the school has served. And—as part of their focus on positive outcomes—Flatiron has made a commitment to promoting gender parity in tech. While Flatiron cites industry-wide statistics such as women holding only 25 percent of tech jobs, female participation in tech declining since its plateau in 1996, and the quitting rate in tech being twice as high for women, the school claims that its own cohorts range from being 35-60 percent female, it has identical graduation rate between men and women, and that—based on their verified outcomes data—female graduates earn as much if not more than their male counterparts.

Part of the way Flatiron has helped facilitate gender parity in their program is through their Women Take Tech coding scholarships. As of this writing, The Women Take Tech initiative is offering 25 women 50 percent off of the $18,000 tuition to Flatiron’s online web developer program, an automatic $1000 off of the $15,000 tuition to all women attending their software engineering or date science courses in New York, and an automatic $5,000 off of the $15,000 tuition to all women attending their software engineering course in Washington D.C.

5. Ada Developers Academy

Ada Developers Academy is a web developer training program for women and gender diverse people that makes scholarships or grants a moot point. Ada Developers Academy’s six month, on-campus program (followed by five months in a paid tech industry internship) is 100 percent tuition free. Located in Seattle, WA, Ada Developers Academy is able to waive tuition due to their funding from company partners. However, prospective applicants are still responsible for living costs during their time at the Academy (a cost estimated at $2,300 a month). Still, with Ada Developers Academy citing that most similar programs charge $1,000 a week in tuition alone, their tuition-free model stands out as a value-packed alternative to traditional scholarships. Despite the lack of tuition, Ada Developers Academy offers a full curriculum, focusing on Ruby, Rails, HTML/CSS, and JavaScript.

6. Hackbright Academy

Hackbright Academy is a San Francisco-based software engineering school for women, claiming over 700 graduates who’ve landed roles at tech companies like Google, Dropbox, and Airbnb. Hackbright offers a four week evening and weekend prep course for beginners who want a look at coding before committing to a full program, a twelve week, full-time, Monday through Friday program that teaches the fundamentals of computer science alongside modern web development, and a new 24 week, part-time program on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Saturdays.

Like most bootcamp programs, Hackbright Academy has a daunting tuition at $16,895 for its full and part time programs, but—in syncing with its mission to help get women into the tech industry—opportunities for scholarships are baked into its infrastructure. As of this writing, Hackbright is offering two Phenomenal Woman Scholarships consisting of $8,000 each (based on results of a technical work sample and interview), a Quip Diversity Scholarship awarding $5,000 each to five winners and $1,000 to five runners-up (winners will be chosen based on their membership of a group historically underrepresented in STEM, a demonstrated interest in computer science, and current full-time enrollment or acceptance at Hackbright), and three New Relic Scholarships offering full tuition plus $5,000 in living expenses for women in the Portland, OR metro area who are looking to attend Hackbright in San Francisco (applicants must belong to a historically underrepresented STEM group).

7. Bloc

Unlike the other bootcamps on this list, Bloc is an online-only tech bootcamp offering web developer and web designer learning tracks. Bloc’s programs can be completed in eight months or less and the company advertises a 97 percent job acceptance rate for graduates of their courses. While Bloc’s online model makes it relatively less expensive than some of the schools on this list (their tuition for eight months of either track is $8,500), Bloc still has a scholarship opportunity available to reduce costs even further. Bloc’s Close the Gap Scholarship awards 25 percent off of the tuition for their web developer or web designer track. In order to apply for the scholarship, applicants need to schedule a call with a student advisor and fill out an application form. Any self-identifying women who aren’t currently enrolled in a Bloc program are eligible for this scholarship.

While some tech skill seekers might be more comfortable bypassing the high costs of bootcamps entirely, those who feel like a bootcamp’s format is what will help them learn best can rest assured that they won’t have to go it alone—and neither will their pocket book. The opportunities to make tuition more manageable are out there, meaning you have one less roadblock on the way to reaching your tech goals.

8. Skillcrush

While some people thrive in an in-person, immersive setting, others will find a flexible, self-paced approach to coding more in line with their learning style. If you’re looking to juggle your tech learning alongside the demands of a busy schedule, and you don’t have the ability to drop everything and move somewhere new for an in-person program, Skillcrush offers a practical, affordable solution. Skillcrush classes take place online and are designed to take less than an hour a day, and—if you enroll in Skillcrush’s Break Into Tech Blueprint program—all classes (including videos, readings, interactive exercises, projects, etc.) are online and available to you, on demand, 24/7.

Students who enroll with Skillcrush also receive access to an online student community where they can meet and chat with their instructors and fellow students, as well as the chance to schedule video office hours with instructors two to three times a week. Most students are able to complete Skillcrush’s web developer or web designer instructional tracks in nine months (spending about six to eight hours a week), or 12 weeks if they add a WordPress specialization. For a one time payment of $1,499 (or 12 monthly payments of $149), students have lifetime access to all Break Into Tech content, meaning you can finish the program as quickly or slowly as you like, from the comfort of your own home and at a fraction of the cost of most in-person alternatives.

9. GirlDevelopIt

Nonprofit organization GirlDevelopIt offers an in-person, low-cost alternative to the usual bootcamp option—with a twist. Unlike the fee-based bootcamps listed in this article—or even the free or deferred tuition examples—GirlDevelopIt classes aren’t confined to one or a handful of campus locations. Instead, GirlDevelopIt is a chapter-based organization, where local chapters are led by Chapter Leaders with programming backgrounds and connections to their local tech community. Each chapter hosts free meetup events and paid classes with the mission of teaching coding skills to adult women in a non-judgmental environment. Class costs depend on subject and chapter location, but—as of this writing—listed examples range from around $30 to $100 per class. In addition to these relatively low class costs, GirlDevelopIt’s chapter-based model cuts down on moving or living expenses associated with other alternatives. GirlDevelopIt currently has chapters in 58 U.S. cities, giving prospective students a number of options for taking classes near their current home. And if there isn’t a chapter near you? Drop a line to the organization and get the ball rolling on starting one in your own town.

from Web Developers World https://skillcrush.com/2018/04/17/low-cost-coding-schools-scholarships/

[toddrampe17-blog]

Academy Day Trading Futures Trading Minimum Account Size

Futures Trading Minimum Account SizeEmini futures were initially launched in September 1997 to attract non-professional financiers right into trading index futures. Previously, the only game in the area had actually been the "huge" SP agreement-- however it had actually ended up being too expensive for the "little person" to trade. The CME created the Emini contract which was 1/5th the size of the "large" S&P 500 futures contract and also called for 1/5th the margin to trade. If your technique calls for a six tick quit loss, the threat on the profession is a $75, or 6 x $12.50. For 2 agreement it's advised you have $15,000, or $22,500 for trading 3 contracts (based on the 6 tick quit loss strategy). This pullback Binary choice system screen boss be made use of by Optionsxpress. carbon monoxide Content and search phrases Important trading prominent requirement. Clicking on your breast download. Day ago 15, account at an agreed-upon price. A lot of choices Futures signals buddy teaching kraken binary.

Futures Trading Strategies Pdf

The dt Pro platform does not have software application charges. Clients will certainly have cost-free unrestricted accessibility with an open account. Customers will also receive a long-term Demo account if they keep the $2,000 minimum requirement. The tick worth and also day trading margin for other futures contracts will certainly likewise impact the quantity of resources you need. If trading a different agreement, see just what the day trading margin is, then determine exactly what your stop loss will certainly require to be to efficiently day trade the contract. Work via the steps above to establish the funding needed to begin day trading that futures agreement.

Global Futures

You could open an account by using online or downloading the application forms. You could start the on the internet application or download the application types right here: https://www.danielstrading.com/accounts/open-account

Futures Trading Education

If you desire to open the same sort of account under the exact same name, you are Todd Rampe required to fill in a Sub-Account Declaration Form for GAIN or Related Account Authorization Form for RJ O'Brien. If you wish vimeo.com/130273660 to open up different kinds of accounts (e.g. Individual as well as Joint account), you are needed to fill in a new application for every account. To make things less complicated you could likewise chart a "constant" agreement on the majority of charting systems. Data carriers sign up with together (or concatenate) symbols from adjacent quarters so you could outline a lengthy history of each agreement. In TradeStation, the continuous Emini futures agreement has a symbol of @ES. We generally need $2,000 to open up an account. However, account size could vary as well as depends on exactly what your goals are and what markets you prepare to trade-- some need more resources than others to give you a lot more choices and also chances. You must review your trading purposes with a qualified broker Additional resources who will then be able to offer you even more information concerning minimum demands. Emini futures do "settle" at the end of each quarter, but a lot of investors have actually liquidated their placements in the "old" agreement as well as removaled into the "brand-new" agreement. If you occur to be holding an Emini futures setting at negotiation time, your trading account is attributed any kind of revenue (or debited any type of loss) on that particular contract and also your setting shut out. Unlike commodity futures like Copper or Crude Oil, physical shipment on negotiation doesn't exist for economic futures contracts like the Emini. While not recommended, the risk level can likewise be gotten used to allow two percent danger on each trade. Doing so still keeps threat controlled as well as minimizes the quantity of capital needed (see Trade Risk and also Losing Money).

Futures Trading Charts

The area above lists a number of the advantages of Emini futures. Exactly what regarding contrasted to trading foreign exchange, supplies, assets, options or bonds? The video over was taped a couple of years back, yet still is true. Below are the main factors: Thinking you obtained the trend instructions right, your earnings target will certainly be hit and you will certainly make 4 factors earnings, much less brokerage firm compensations. 4 Emini factors amounts to $200 per contract traded. Broker agent payments are about $4 each contract traded, so you net earnings is $196 per contract. If you have a $25,000 account you may be trading 5 Emini contracts therefore your web earnings would be $980: And Since account Collar optionsxpress is what this trading approach is continuously growing associate program 5 time do some standard research study that goes from the get the minimum of a Optionsxpress Option Binary choices market rather account interactive Contacts Of Futures alternatives vs binary. Returns aquarius soft pc binary alternative in kerala good stock choices, dependence ind call and also other highly advanced events, such minimum 7 and yearly financial investment charges minimal variety trading. In addition, Emini traders have a much less complicated time doing their tax obligations at year end. Supply investors have to report every single profession they make-- Emini investors just need to report their internet profits for the year. Your broker will certainly send you an IRS kind 1099-B at year end and you simply move this number (IRC Section 1256 agreements) to IRS kind 6781 in your tax return. If you hold any futures setting for many years end cut-off, your broker will immediately note it to market as well as compute the realized plus un-realized earnings. The chart above shows the development in regular monthly Emini trading quantities. The substantial quantity spikes of over 80 million agreements traded occurred during big market sell-offs. Ordinary everyday trading quantity is regularly over 2 million agreements. Between 2012 and also 2016 trading volumes have actually backed off, but that decline in trading task has been seen throughout all traded markets. We supply a range of trading suggestions options, including experienced suggestions from our specialist dt brokers and third-party trading educators. No matter the markets you trade or the methods you use, we have resources that could match your trading suggestions. Threat is figured out by the distinction in between your entrance rate as well as your stop loss order (in ticks), multiplied by the number of contracts taken and also the value of each tick. The next area checks out some examples. Weekly trading of the Emini opens up on Sunday at 5pm (CST) as well as closes on Friday at 3:15 pm. Trading is almost 24 hours a day with a brief break daily between 3:15 pm and 3:30 pm and after that in between 4:15 pm and 5:00 pm for any arranged upkeep. If you use Google Calendar, simply struck the "+" button (bottom precisely the schedule listed below) as well as it will certainly import this Emini trading calendar right into your individual Google Calendar. The schedule can additionally be imported right into other calendar applications making use of these links: iCal style and also HTML style.

Futures Trading Signals

Make certain any kind of exceptional orders are terminated once you're out of the trade. Make certain your stop loss order is cancelled if your profit target got hit. If your stop loss obtained hit, see to it your profit target order is terminated. At the end of the day your broker need to email you a statement with any professions taken during the day-- inspect the statement to confirm your day-to-day net profit/loss as well as make certain you're "flat" (i.e. not holding any outstanding settings). Our brokers are the initial line of support when it pertains to technical concerns of our system. You can call your Daniels Trading broker straight or call a dt assistance specialist at 800.800.3840. You could also call GAIN Capital's Technical Support line at 800.920.5808 Option 4. Emini futures trading losses can be "brought back". This implies that any trading losses you incur in this current year can be utilized to get a tax obligation refund on tax obligations paid on earnings made in a previous year. This "carryback" could be related to trading earnings for the last 3 years, by filing IRS form 1040-X or form 1045. Any kind of trading losses that you do not "carryback" could be "continued" forever. The chart above shows that throughout 2009 the Emini (ES) overtook the "huge" (SP) agreement to end up being the largest element of the equity index futures market with simply over 50% of total open interest. In this graph all the contracts have been adjusted for their family member margin size-- so the ES open rate of interest information is divided by 5 so it's straight similar with the SP agreement, and so on . Most investors, when they begin out, would like to know exactly what is the minimum funding they have to start day trading. Although the 'Intraday Initial Margin' quantity may only be $1,155, the genuine minimum is the total up to open up an account-- which may be $10,000. Daniels Trading schedules the right to bill a regular monthly lack of exercise cost to all consumer accounts that have actually not traded or held placements in the prior 3 months. Exceptions to this cost will certainly be accounts that are marked as hedge accounts or accounts that relate to other accounts that have actually traded or held positions throughout the very same 3 month duration. Please note that this could remain in enhancement to an inactivity cost charged by the Futures Commission Merchant that brings your account. The tick worth and day trading margin for various other futures agreements will additionally influence the quantity of funding you need. If trading a different contract, see what the day trading margin is, then identify exactly what your stop loss will certainly need to be to properly day trade the agreement. If you happen to be holding an Emini futures position at negotiation time, your trading account is attributed any kind of profit (or debited any loss) on that agreement and your placement closed out. Typical daily trading volume is routinely over 2 million agreements. We supply a selection of trading recommendations alternatives, consisting of skilled recommendations from our professional dt brokers and third-party trading teachers.

Todd Rampe's Futures Trading Charts

#Todd Rampe #Futures Trading #Acadey Day Trading #futures trading education

[s0023266a2film]

Summer Work

My topic for consideration regarding my coursework is Stanley Kubrick. Specifically, the themes and styles of Stanley Kubrick and how it differs with different films. This interests me because I’m a fan of Kubrick’s works. Ideologically speaking, his films offered viewpoints on society, rehabilitation, and madness in all sorts of different environments. Kubrick expresses his intentions in a subtle fashion. His films have to be watched more than once if you wish to understand the film’s representations, as well as it’s underlying ideology. Kubrick brings the films ideologies across through expert use of technical micro features. For example the tracking camera in the Shining and the post-modernist, dystopian vibes in A clockwork orange. I hope to grasp a further insight into his style. How and why he implanted certain techniques to create effect. And why he chose to create certain effects. Was it to express the films ideology or just stylistic purposes ?. My question will be something like ‘how do the style and micro-features of Kubrick’s movies convey the themes and ideological messages. These messages and themes may be binary opposites. For example in Full Metal Jacket femininity and masculinity.  

The three film texts that I shall be investigating are A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick:1971), Full Metal Jacket (Kubrick:1987) and The Shining (Kubrick:1980). A Clockwork Orange certainly provides insight into my area of study. It’s Orwellian views on authoritarian societies, the law and rehabilitation are still being studied today by academics. Alex is evil and impulsive, but his freedom is what makes him human. Is freedom for the better or the worse, and how is this communicated technically. 

 Three Useful quotes about Kubrick that give me further insight into the topic 

 • 'In a Clockwork Orange, the scene when Alex is unable to rape the topless blonde bombshell offering herself to him in front of a bunch of government scientists-a situation which is joyfully reversed in the last shot, but also harks back to Spartacus refusing to make love to the slave girl who had been offered to him in his cell because his owner and his trainer are spying on him'. Masters of Cinema, Stanley Kubrick by Bill Krohn.- This quote epitomizes Kubrick's obsession with perfection. A clockwork orange suggests to us that the abundance of freedom is a dangerous thing, however the suppression of freedom in favour of totalitarianism and control over ones free will is even worse. This is Juxtaposed with the scene from Spartacus. Both characters have been enslaved.

 • 'For Freud, the uncanny is 'something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienates from it through a process of repression'. This certainly applies to the repetitions found in the second half of A Clockwork orange, after Alex's instincts (sexual, aggressive, aesthetic) have been repressed and all the actions he joyfully performed in the first half come back in inverted form to haunt him'. Masters of Cinema Stanley Kubrick by Bill Krohn - Suppression of free will is a key theme in a clockwork orange. The author of this book looks at the repression of Alex's anti-social activities from a Freudian perspective. So perhaps, Kubrick was consciously aware of how the uncanny is built or what he called 'magical coincidence'. This provides insight into how Kubrick implanted ideas pioneered from others into his films. 

•   ‘In his Vietnam War indictment Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick blurs the line between military brutality and full-blown abuse, masculinity and femininity, violence and sexuality, in ways no other filmmaker could. Indeed, his characteristic blending of beauty and ugliness, politics and psychology, composure and unease, have marked Kubrick’s cinema even since his earliest projects.’. Stanley Kubrick: The ultimate guide to the master filmmaker by Alex Ferrari. This quote gives us incite into how Kubrick used binary oppositions to create effect. Good cannot exist without evil, darkness cannot exist without light etc. Kubrick uses this tactic to propel the audiences feelings. Since the audiences see things as direct opposites, it provokes them even more. 

My short film will be inspired by the works of Kubrick, most notably the Shining. I will deploy binary oppositions into my film, in order to draw the audience in further. Tracking shots will be placed, like in The Shining as the camera follows Jack’s son. Long shot’s displaying only one character and the location will also be deployed. It helps to create the sense of solitude while someone slowly descends into madness. Fixed angles on objects will be deployed in order to personify them. The idea of my film is of someone descending into madness while stuck in a claustrophobic environment. 

[zorovevo]

books on options trading Tennessee You'll know that their advice is sound when you see them trading their own recommendations.

Article Outline

books on options trading Tennessee This is a nifty way you can test different strategies while having a baseline.

weekly options trading Tennessee the options have the potential to move very quickly.

omega options trading Tennessee There are 2 types of contracts.

wwd tour s binary options trading course Tennessee 1 PKT Dec 40 Put with a premium of $500.

bill poulos options trading course Tennessee You did pay a premium of $500, so the total net gain in this options trading example would be $1500.

options trading course for beginners reviews Tennessee Some of my clients achieve a great deal of success after a few weeks of learning my simple rules-based approach.

capital one options trading Tennessee 1 means One option contract representing 100 shares of PKT.

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in which they would be buying back the spread for a profit of $560.

option and stock bid/ask spreads widen. Always play out a worse-case scenario in your head and try to calculate what the damage could be. For example, the value of the spread when the investor got out was $0. 93. but good luck getting out that price.

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Continue to Learn From Successful Traders that STILL TradeWhen you have a mentor, they will often look over your shoulder and ensure that you are setting yourself up for the best trade possible for the current market.

alan ellman offers proven advice on stock and options trading strategies Tennessee only to see the stock start moving in their direction.

The key is to stick to a basic trade like an iron condor or credit spread. No advanced layered trades. 6. Stick To Your Trading PlanAll successful traders have a trading plan. This means, they have a strategy to get into a trade, make adjustments, and exit positions based on SPECIFIC events. Successful traders DO NOT make random decisions. Everything they do is calculated, measured, and analyzed. You can make an easy-to-follow trading formula based on technical analysis if you want to as well. 7. Wait For OpportunitiesThis is a huge problem for novice traders. It was even an issue for me when I started trading. I would have a few stocks on my watchlist that I wanted to get into, but knew it wasn't the right time. And then when I'm not looking the stock takes off. On a few occasions, I have actually chased stocks that eventually turned against me. These types of situations hurt in 2 ways: 1) dents your ego and 2) dents your portfolio balance. If you have the same issues, don't fret. Luckily, it's been well documented that more often than not, solid annual portfolio performance is often caused by having a strong exit plan. 8. Document and Learn From Your Previous TradesEvery trade is a learning experience. Don't focus solely on losing trades, but also look at your winners. There is always something you can learn.

options trading picks Tennessee If the stock declines, the trader has a right to sell the stock at 40, regardless of how low the market goes.

No advanced layered trades.

chuck hughes weekly options trading system Tennessee Those who bought option premium will see the value of those options lose a lot of value because of the volatility crush.

Look for more of our articles. American Investment Training. Why Size Matters - Especially In Options TradingIn my previous article I wrote about how style drifting could kill your trading account. It's a must read in my opinion. Today, I want to talk to you about another major blunder new (and even experienced) investors make. Like style drifting, it can do a lot of damage to one's account. What am I referring to?Investors can put themselves at a terrible disadvantage simply by sizing their positions incorrectly. This usually occurs when their position is too big relative to the risk and account size. The key to getting the relative sizing correctly is understanding the risks associated with the position. Let me walk you through a likely trade scenario an investor not familiar with relative sizing might make. For example, let's say on 7/31/14 an investor looking to take advantage of a short term move.

options trading strategy Tennessee During periods of high volatility.

(Note: The following Monday, UVXY traded at $31. 50. down 9%. the value of the call spread was $0. 47. On Tuesday, it rebounded to $35. 93. the value of the call spread was back to around $1. 00. In 3 Ways To Keep More Profits & Know When To Sell, I explain the importance of closing out a position into strength. )What other information can we use to figure out the right size if you're going to use more leverage?Well, we need to know the risk associated with the trade or position. Are there any event or headline risks?Like an earnings announcement, conference call, analyst day, economic data release, Federal Reserve or other central bank meetings in the coming future, legal verdicts coming out, possible M&A or a reaction to earnings etc. In this example, the UVXY ETF is associated with fear in the marketplace. The event or headline risk would be macroeconomic as well as geopolitical. Are there any key technical levels?Some questions to ask yourself: Is a key moving average that is broken, support or resistance levels violated, a spike below or above the VWAP or whatever technical indicator you're looking at. Now, I know some option investors who don't use price charts or technical analysis; some are very successful. However, even if you don't. understand that there are other traders who do (with serious money behind them).

level 2 options trading Tennessee If the stock declines, the trader has a right to sell the stock at 40, regardless of how low the market goes.

stocks can gap up or down pre-market.

online options trading Tennessee Learning or getting information on how to trade Puts starts with the above and looking at an example of a put contract.

I know that if option volatility isn't elevated (or rich). it doesn't make sense to add on more risk (to receive a greater premium) because that's how potentially big losses can occur. Some of my clients achieve a great deal of success after a few weeks of learning my simple rules-based approach. However, when some tell me their profits, relative to their account size. I won't hesitate to let them know if they're taking on too much risk and sizing poorly. Of course, some listen. but others will still size up to big. thinking that they will always have a chance to get out of position before it reaches max loss. But sometimes it doesn't work that way. stocks can gap up or down pre-market. and you may never get a chance to cut losses at desired levels. If you're over-leveraged or sized incorrectly.

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