#typing system' or etc. etc. Like no I cannot watch media just to enjoy it BUT if you turn media into something that can

[starlinefactives]

(ENG) Dealing with dysmorphia as a factive

— By Hyuka

Spanish version here: Link

Index ✨

Intro...

What to do during the crisis...

What to do after the crisis...

Remark and summary...

1. Intro⭐

Hi, I'm an introject of Hueningkai, one of the members of a K-pop group called TxT. As you can see I use Hyuka to refer to myself. I'm not going to explain what's an introject, what's DID, etc because I do this content by and for other introjects. More info about our project here: Link

In this post you'll find tips to manage easily the days where looking in the mirror, listening to yourself and remembering your "other life" hurts. Perhaps dysmorphia isn't the perfect term, since for us (factives) depersonalization's often mixed with this body distortion. We have a vivid reference to how we see ourselves, and I know firsthand how it can end up affecting physical & emotional health. So here we're 🤣

2. What to do during the crisis⭐

There are things that you can do but I recommend doing the hard stuff when the feeling doesn't cloud us so much... So:

0°) Right now isn't the time to look for answers.

First heal and feel better. In moments like this, it isn't necessary to look for concrete answers, if not to rest and seek personal care.

Things you could do at the moment:

1°) Don't look for photos/videos of your source on your bad days.

I know, or at least it happens to me, I begin to sink into photos but they only widen the abyss between feeling better and the current moment. It doesn't mean you must never watch them, of course you can enjoy watching videos/photos/etc. but when you feel good... Not when you're hating the body of the system.

2°) Avoid mirrors. Reflection from the phone included.

Something that has helped me is that if the peak of discomfort catches me at a meeting/family gathering/similar and they want a group photo, I don't look at it at the moment (Other alter will do it some days after, for example). So you don't deprive yourself of creating beautiful memories for the day that we will can look at ourselves.

3°) Try to call another alter to the inner or the front to help you.

Be careful, not that they remove you from the front, from the conscience and TADAA. No, I mean someone to accompany you. Something that our therapist told us is to avoid sudden switches and seek accompaniment as far as possible. Once you are accompanied, if the situation allows it, try to focus on taking care of yourself physically and mentally.

4°) When you cannot reason with your thoughts; distract yourself.

There must be something you like to do that is not related to your source, even if it is sleeping, walking, calling a friend on the system, listening to other types of music...

3. What to do after the crisis⭐

These activities are the ones that could help you prevent and make dysmorphia peaks more manageable.

5°) Silence words that may trigger you in social media.

For example, for me they are weight and food themes. One day, the cookies on my phone detected this, it began an automatic and continuous barrage of suggestions for weight loss apps, of people talking nonsense and insulting each other. If I had taken my own advice earlier, I wouldn't have this problem now. Highly recommended //teasing tone

6°) Find a "safe outfit", if you are able find a style.

It doesn't have to be the same as in your source, just have to help the skin feel more yours. It can also help with dysphoria. This is more inherited dysphoria-themed advice from those before me in the system; our body's afab and most alters are male or non-binary.

7°) Prepare a small emergency kit with thing that you like, things that calm you down, may with a list of thing you verified before that works…

Even if it's a simple list stuck in a corner of your room, it will already make it easier for you when you start to feel bad. In my case, I have this in TO DO list... so don't try to self-impose perfection (But I'll make the kit, I promise, in due time).

8°) Remember what makes you yourself which I assure you is not just your source.

Another thing I have in TO DO list... In my case, it's really hard to validate myself without comparing me to Hueningkai (he and I have a toxic relationship //joke). I invite you to make a list as well with what friends, other alters, yourself, etc see in you that makes you be youself 💖

9°) Familiarize yourself with the face of the system.

One of our alters spent a few moments looking at ourselves in the mirror and meditating on what the face of the system was like during his front. He has the advantage of being calm and rational, maybe it will take us more to get to that point... but trying little by little can help us in the long run.

4. Remark and summary⭐

Of the five factives I'm the one that manage this issue the worst, that's why i wanted to agroup everything here and share it. It's very complicated, and even with the therapist I haven't dared to confess that I'm an introjection of an idol, btw… but step by step, don't hope perfection one day to another. I like to keep on mind that my system is with me and that I'm just as valid to making friends & just existing as any other human being.

I leave you the summary in a decorated list~ Thanks for reading my first long post!

Tips against dysmorphia as factives:

In crisis it is not time to look for answers 🪐

Don't look for photos/videos of your source on your bad days 🌎

Avoid mirrors 🌜

Try to call another alter to the inner/front that goes along with you 🌌

When you can't reason with your thoughts; distract yourself 🛸

Silence words that may trigger you on social media 🌒️

Find a "safe outfit", if you are able find a style 🌕️

Prepare a small emergency kit 🚀

Remember what makes you yourself 👽

Get familiar step by step with the face of the system 🔭

#english is not my first language please be nice #i did my best #thanks for reading really #factive #didsystem #kpopfactive

[concupiscience]

Critical theory has caused the west to be overly self-aware, to the extent that culture can no longer organically develop without obsessive comparison. Its tendency to dissect itself has left nothing but shards of thoughts, fragments of images that were once so tightly interwoven.

Therefore, we shouldn’t be concerned with the current popular trends, or even the forthcoming zeitgeist which is always visible over the waves of those successive trends, each obliterating the last in an endless cycle. Not now, not next, but what comes after that is our objective. What is unseen as of yet, that is our goal.

THE STARS THAT FLOG THE SEA WITH WHIPS OF LIGHT

NOT ME.

ecstatic rites of an elegant, ancient beauty

perishing under sickly skies

NEVER LOOK BACk

WHO FUCKING CARES

If u have formed some type of notion about me please just do us both a favor and just forget that shit because human beings are in a constant state of change

To taste every forbidden fruit,

松の木々を通る夕日の最後の光線 寒さを逃れるために南へ飛ぶ鳥たちを照らす

You are limitless potential. You are the clay at the potter’s wheel.

Is this hell? This is definitely hell.

that dusk-tinged demigod

Industrial society operates under the presumption that resources are infinite

A triumphant, arrogant attitude may be necessary from time to time

The same moon my ancestors and descendants behold

We’re all hoes under the same blue sky

Ephemeral and fleeting as a smoke spirit

Having drunk deeply from the cup of sin

Spoiling the land with hubris and greed

Wow imagine that, In our modern society everything has to be done for money

I think you live longer when you have a good attitude. There’s cases where cancer goes into remission when a person starts believing they don't have it anymore. Likewise, there’s also cases of people dying on purpose from resigning their will to live, like those super old couples who die within days of each other. You can control your health with your mindset, at least that’s what I believe. If your mind is thriving your body is thriving. Right but we do have free will to influence our future. “The system cannot be sustained indefinitely ” Right. Like why did a religious impulse develop independently in every single ancient culture.

Media consumes us. Objects own us. Money spends us.

The flowers bloom without caring if they are observed.

Pattern-Matrix

Mass media, escapism, distraction, bread and circuses, whatever you want to call it. Recorded by studios with more money than some countries, packaged neatly for mass consumption. This is the result of capitalism working flawlessly for over a century. the spectator becomes a mere receptacle for media, they become a consumer, the same way food is consumed then comes out as waste, media consumes us. The more people are emotionally invested in fictional people and fictional worlds the easier it is to distract them from what’s happening in real life- the panopticon of modern life. Your superheroes, singers, actors, exist for one purpose only: to sell you a product. Through our complicity they buy our complacency. They have taught us to be satisfied with “what is” and not think about “what could be” because that’s just the way it is. They exist to sell us an image of what our lives and the world ought to be, and we stupidly buy into it. It’s a drug we regularly take.There’s nothing wrong with enjoying movies, TV, books, music etc but you have to realize what is illusion and what is real. When you watch anything, imagine the processes that go into its production. Could this potentially be used to manipulate people into feeling a certain way? Is this fact or does it reflect the views of its creator? All I’m saying is that if you unplug from this “machine” things seem much more relative.

we are bound to our era. we cannot escape the present. 

The notion of a grand, divine scheme negates the possibility of free will. If God does have a plan for everyone, that would mean we only have the illusion of free will.

Tragic figures such as these

Traditions everywhere are dying, we must forge new ones

Wholly effaced by time

Writ large

Pastoral vibes

I believe there are multiple paths to God. The fact that religion has sprung up independently in so many places over so vast a distance is incredible. Jesus and Buddha weren’t so different in their teachings.

Some got it more right than others, obviously.

So there is actually very compelling evidence that early Christianity was heavily influenced by similar savior-centered religious sects such as Mithraism, Orphism and the veneration of Dionysus (they all belong to the subset of Rising-and-dying gods). We know for certain that in Alexandria, an extremely important centre for early Christianity, Buddhist monks taught at the library of Alexandria around the time of jesus.

Wine was central to the rituals of Dionysus, who was believed to have died and been resurrected.

The real importance is that Jesus and Buddha were real historical figures that established schools of thought that endured for millennia.

They both preached the importance of virtue and morality, sympathy for the suffering and acceptance of the transitory nature of the material world.

The library itself was mostly intact until the 260s AD when it was burned by Aurelian.

There is ample evidence of eastern thought circulating in the near east around the time of christ. Statues of hindu gods were found in Pompeii, in Alexandria itself a tombstone with the Wheel of Dharma was discovered, in the port city of myos hormos in Egypt a sail cloth of Indian manufacturing was discovered. The trade routes between judea and the east were active until the 4th century AD.

Theres a Christian tradition that the apostle Thomas died in India where the church he established still exists.

Paganism is an umbrella term for anything that isn’t Christianity, or more accurately the animistic traditions that predate monotheism.

Judaism is fascinating because we have proof it originally was polytheistic. It’s totally Canaanite in origin but over time yahweh was promoted to the status of one true god. The painted pottery from Kuntillet Ajrud Shows yahweh and Asherah (later ishtar, aphrodite) as his consort.

Religions dont appear from nowhere. They’re the product of thousands of years of tradition, thought, and self reflection.

Do you believe the bible refutes evolution?

I dont think it does either. Those seven days of creation are metaphorical. The bible says our lives are like a single breath of god. Which implies he operates on a much longer timescale than humans. So the space between the first and last days of creation could have been billions of years for all we know.

Because the second to last thing he did was to create humans. Evolutionarily, anatomically modern humans first emerged in east Africa around 100,000 years ago. The first stirrings of human culture were around 20,000 years ago. The pyramids were only built 4000 years ago. Rome was only 2000 years ago. We can’t even comprehend how early on in our journey thru the universe we are.

A mere blip in the cosmic timescale. We might not even survive another million years.

I’m tired of getting hurt

旅に病んで 夢は枯れ野を かけめぐる

Falling ill on a journey my dreams go wandering over withered fields

[thechekhov]

Do you think it's okay to completely separate artist from creation? Because I just found out a comic artist I really like is like against Transgender and wants to ignore race and all the bad stuff going on. I really like their work but their beliefs bother me. I dont know if I should continue to enjoy what I use to and separate artist from work, or to just unfollow. I'm not the type of person to try and force my views into others so I'm not gonna be harassing them to try and change their opinion

It depends on how you define ‘separate artist from creation’. Because there’s really two ways to do that. For the sake of this thought exercise let’s all imagine:

You have content you enjoy. You find out the author of that content is a less than stellar person. Maybe they support harmful causes, maybe they’re bigot and refuse basic respect to people different from them, maybe worldviews harm you and others that you love, etc.

Do you:

A) Pretend the author doesn’t exist but continue to consume the content while clapping your hands over your ears and going ‘LALALALALA’ and doing your best to forget who wrote it? Pretend Hatsune Miku wrote it instead? Separate the wonderful characters you’ve come to know and love, tear them from the hands of the author and say ‘they’re mine now, you never had them! I’ve assigned my own, healthier headcanons!’

OR

B) Acknowledge that their harmful worldviews will affect their content, regardless how indirectly... and consume the content anyway, but do your best not to support their views (i.e not following their main account, holding them responsible and not letting them get away with leaning on harmful/racist/outdated stereotypes)? 

... 

Here’s the thing though - if you picked B, you are NOT separating author from art. You are actively acknowledging that the author IS affecting their art - and aiming to minimize the harm caused through that content. You are already taking steps to protect others, and that does make a difference. That shows that you already know the answer to your own question. 

We realistically cannot separate art from artist. Not fully. Nor, I would argue, should we attempt to do so!

In this media-saturated world, we all consume a LOT of content. Realistically, we cannot filter and check ALL of it - or all of its creators - to be 100% sure that we are only following/consuming only the most un-problematic of all people. It’s just not feasible and holding yourself to that standard is unrealistic. 

But what we CAN all do is be critical. We can look at something that a transphobic person wrote and ask ‘does this content present harmful stereotypes?’ and we can ask ‘does this storyline have racist tropes?’ and etc. 

I’m going to be frank - I consume what could considered ‘problematic’ content. Biggest example is probably Brooklyn 99. The thing is - it’s copaganda!  And throughout the show, there are very clear, ill-disguised attempts to gloss over abuse to police power by using quirky lovable characters that are constantly breaking the law but end up as the good guys at the end of each episode! And this isn’t even the point of the show - it’s treated as a non-issue. At the beginning of season 5 they delve into prison system power abuse - but only really make it an issue for the ‘innocent good-guy cop Jake’. The next few episodes after the fact it shows - BLATANTLY - Jake and Holt screaming at and lying to a (Black!) suspect to get a confession out of him. It’s treated as the right thing to do! A quirky idea that good-guy Jake had! 

Wanna get psychological whiplash? Watch When They See Us on Netflix and then watch Jake yelling at his suspect in the interrogation room. Ask yourself why those two are different, or why they are interpreted differently. Then ask why they aren’t, and shouldn’t be. 

And when I watch Brooklyn 99 I have two options:

I can cover my ears and sing LALALA IT’S JUST A SHOW, I’M JUST HAVING FUN! or I can be critical and practice calling out the blatantly police-propoganda-y tropes when they come on-screen and evaluate the good vs. the bad and ask myself every once in a while ‘is the Good here outweighed by the Bad? Is there content here that I couldn’t get elsewhere?’

In the end, no one can stop you from consuming content. If you want to keep watching/reading - you will find a way. But ignoring the issues, turning away and trying to imagine away the bad parts... will ALWAYS leave you with less than the full picture. It’s far more harmful to pretend that everything is fine for the sake of making yourself feel comfortable than it is to just face it head-on and admit that the author will inevitably leave a part of their beliefs in their art. 

When people read my stories - even something as removed as WD!Steven - they will inevitably be coming in contact with MY political views, even if they’re not obvious. And honestly, I wouldn’t want people to separate my art from myself. 

I want to make it clear - in many cases, unfollowing/blocking is absolutely the best thing to do. I’ve done that for many creators that I realized were... not good people. But that sort of thing is for you to decide, and so I won’t just tell you ‘go unfollow them!’. It’s way more important that you make this judgement not because of peer pressure - but because you’ve thought about it and made the decision that makes the most sense for YOU.

#Anonymous #separating art from artist #chekhov answers #brooklyn 99 #transphobia #police brutality #police violence #copaganda #propaganda #problematic #tumblr

[doorbloggr]

Friday 11/6/21 - Media (maybe) Recommendations #6

Contents this week:

Anime: Goblin Slayer

Anime: Keijo!!!!!!!!

It's Friday and I didn't post much this past week. Time is a blur, and I haven't had a chance to watch any new anime for a couple weeks now. Sometimes it's hard to get into a new series, may it be finding the time, or finding something that you'd like. With this train of thought in mind, for this week's Friday Media Recommendations, I'm gonna discuss 2 anime that I enjoyed, but are hard to recommend.

I am prefacing these recommendations with the notion that these two series are EXPLICITY not for everyone.

Anime: Goblin Slayer

The High Fantasy genre of fiction has wide appeal in every medium. For anime fans specifically, High Fantasy is a category welcome to fans of all types. There is Slice of Life Fantasy, Romance Fantasy, Shonen Fantasy etc. But while I would usually recommend every Fantasy Anime I've watched, Goblin Slayer is not for everyone.

Here's my pitch. Goblin Slayer is set in a high fantasy world with a very simple magic system and a clear schism between "player races" and "enemy races". The world operates very similarly to how a Dungeons and Dragon Anime would work, and during the opening, it even hints that all members of the main cast have their fates decided by the roll of a dice. The titular main character has a dark backstory that has meant he has sworn to dedicating himself to specifically hunting Goblins.

Many adventurers look down on the Goblin Slayer for being an expert at such a low rank enemy, others recognise his talents, but think they are wasted on only hunting Goblins. In a light hearted fantasy story, the Goblin Slayer would be a quirky fun character, but this anime is deep and very dark.

It's hard to explain how without spoilers... Characters die in this anime. Characters we get to know first, and then we see them ripped to shreds, imprisoned, abused, and if they are saved, they are never the same again. Goblin Slayer does not shy away from depicting the most gruesome, heinous acts happening in real time to fleshed-out, named characters, in very vivid detail. If this anime was actually a D&D game, then the DM is actually trying to break his players, and punishes every wrong decision with a potential party wipe. And this cruel DM tells them the second by second details of how their characters are tortured to death.

Now this anime has its light hearted moments. It has its wholesome moments where characters smile and care for each other. There's even hints of fanservice here and there. It is a High Fantasy like any other, where the adventurers go on quests, protect the towns, and recieve gold and level up. But it's also potentially traumatising.

I enjoyed Goblin Slayer. It is a fun fantasy series where the characters are interesting and the world is engaging. And in an earlier blogpost, I said watching the first four episodes will help make your mind up.

With Goblin Slayer, this is not the case. Episode 1 is the most gruesome and heart wrenching episode in the series. So if you are squeamish at all and cannot handle detailed violence, do not watch Goblin Slayer, do not watch even the first episode. But if you watch Episode 1, are a bit shaken up, but keen to see where it goes, the series only gets better from there.

Anime: Keijo!!!!!!!!

I am a relatively cultured nerd, I like depth and substance in my media, but I am also a bisexual, single young man who has never been in a relationship, so I appreciate senseless fanservice.

Fanservice is a very divisive topic within anime fans. Blatant lewd themes can be very out of place in some series and may ruin an otherwise serious mood. Many anime enjoyers may think that explicit fanservice in general has no place is an otherwise diverse, accessible genre of media. What if the genre devolves toward no story or meaning, with series of just boobs and butts? Well I have bad news for you.

Keijo!!!!!!!! (yes the official title does have 8 exclamation marks) is a sports/shonen anime about an academy of girls fighting in the competitive sport of butt-powered watersports. The series follows a group of girls who have specialised movesets that could set them to be champions in a sport where the rules are: use your butt (and only your butt) to knock your opponents off a floating platform into the surrounding swimming pool. Keijo is the ultimate brain-off degeneracy anime, where it does not even try to hide the fact that the series' selling point is the celebration of the female form in a swimsuit.

Like Food Wars, an otherwise simple concept is given depth by presenting each athlete's attacks as superpowers with shonen-style special effects and weight. Every fight has you on the edge of your seat as the girl's behinds become lethal weapons of (m)ass destruction. There is a set goal to the story, as Nozomi, the MC, has aspirations to take her academy to the top and become a world renowned sponsored superstar, the best of the best of hip whip combat.

I am not gonna excuse the series as having hidden depth beyond its fanservice, the fanservice is 100% the main attraction. And if you are not a fan of fanservice just for the sake of it, and I fully understand people who dont, then probably give Keijo a miss. But if you are willing to give a chance to a show about pretty girls weilding their butts as watersports weapons, Keijo is a very fun anime that is not afraid to celebrate boobs, thighs, tummys, and butts.

#blogpost #blog #anime #anime recommendation #not for everyone #goblin slayer #goblin slayer anime #keijo #keijo!!!!!!!! #keijo anime

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #400

“it’s an age-old story: the first will be last, and the last will be kings  /  the small will be great, and the great will be weak”

Who was the last person you sincerely thanked? My mom; I thank her every time she cooks for me/us, and I really do mean it. What’s the longest you’ve ever stayed as a guest at someone’s house? Somewhere around a month. What was the last thing to really surprise you? My brother has a fiancee and is having another son! :') Have you ever found out that you have been sleep walking? No. Have you ever tried making something from one of those short cooking videos? How did it turn out? No. Have you ever written a review for a product you bought online? No. What was the last thing you had the urge to do? Idk about anything notable. Is there anyone you feel that takes you for granted? No. What is the last thing you had a craving for? A donut. Do you ever read the comments on social media posts? Sometimes. What was the last thing you felt like you wasted money on? It's so rare that I buy things with my own cash that I really don't know. What was the last thing you wanted to buy, but couldn’t afford? Venus' terrarium on my own. Mom has to help me with buying it. What is a recipe you’d like to try to make for yourself? I don’t cook, so. What goes through your mind when you look back at old photographs of yourself? More than anything, I get sad over how much weight I've gained. I was so healthy once upon a time. It also just makes me miss my childhood. What was the subject matter of the last email you sent? I believe it was about setting up an appointment with my therapist. How do you get your news? Facebook articles, really. What do you think about lizards? I love them! I was that kid that always tried to catch them when I saw 'em. Now I just observe because I don't want to terrify them by trying to pick them up. Have you ever done consumer testing (testing products before they come out on the market)? If not, would you ever want to? No, but sure, I'd do it. Have you ever received anesthesia or morphine? Both. The time I received morphine, it did jack-all for me. If you had to choose which video game to be in, which would it be? Hmmm... I would say Azeroth from World of Warcraft, but too much shit goes down, ha ha. Perhaps the top of the temple in Shadow of the Colossus? So long as I could have someone I love with me, I'd be in Heaven. Although... I doubt there's WiFi there, so I might drop that answer, lmfao. I really don't know. Between the two, would you rather live in a place where it’s only night or where it’s only day? Day. I need the natural light of day sometimes, and if I wanted to sleep, I could just find shade. If you had to be an actor/actress in a movie, what genre of the movie would you be best at? Fantasy. Out of fire, earth, water, wind, light, and dark, which element appeals the most to you? Dark. What’s one thing that you wish was real? Friendly dragons, haha. Is there anything (show, comedian, etc.) that you constantly quote or make references to? No. What’s your favorite Disney Channel movie? I have absolutely no idea. I don't even remember almost any of them. What’s your favorite holiday? Christmas. Do you ever have to do yard work? No. Do you have any live versions of songs in your music software? Yes. Did/do you listen to Britney Spears songs? Yeah, sometimes. I genuinely don't mind her. Do you still make Christmas lists? Yeah, because I'm asked to. Do you watch the show Dexter? Never seen it. Which musical instrument do you think sounds the prettiest? I'm torn between the violin, harp, and piano. Is your mom or dad the older parent? Mom, by a year. Do you and your parents like any of the same bands/singers? A lot, actually. Is there any food in your bedroom? What? I have these tictacs I keep in my purse in case of a dry mouth. Medication makes me have that severely, and my psychiatrist recommended me to always have a hard candy available to suck on since it forces salivation. Do you know anyone who has road rage? Who? My younger sister, badly. How far away do your grandparents live from you? They're all dead, but they lived in far away states. Do you know anyone who wants to be the president one day? No. What kinds of chips are in the cupboards? None. It's a bad idea to keep chips in this house, haha. Do you have your mom's or dad's hair? Well, I was born with dirty blonde hair like my dad, but my hair is thick and more similar in color now to my mom's before the cancer completely drained the color. If you were going out with your celebrity crush, what would you wear? OH MY GOD LA;KSDJFAKLWJE I DON'T KNOW I LOOK AWFUL IN EVERYTHING. Have you ever cried when a teacher retired? Teared up, yes, multiple times. Do you swear and yell while playing video games? I might swear under my breath, but that's the extent of it. If you were adopted, would you want to know? At this point in my life, I don't really know. I kinda find myself leaning towards no. Has a best friend ever ditched you for a girlfriend/boyfriend? Pretty much. Do your pets chase after bugs? Roman sure does. When’s the last time you were so excited you couldn’t sleep? Why? I want to say that was the night before I was getting my tattoo redone. Do you own any flip-flops? Yeah, considering they're like... all I wear, ever. Did you ever really believe that the stork brought babies? I don't believe so, no. Have you ever had a dream about sleeping with a celebrity? (You don’t have to give details.) It was the only lucid dream I've ever had and I'm not complaining about it lmao. Have you ever had a dream that upset you or made you cry? Oh I'm sure. Has anyone ever told you that they needed you? Do you think they meant it? Not to my recollection, no, and I don't believe you should ever adopt that mentality and say that to someone. Do you own a laser? No. Is there anything you like to put on a sandwich, that some might find odd? Nah. I do enjoy a layer of potato chips on some sandwiches, like ham and cheese, but I know that's like an actual thing some people just like. What colour are the shoes you wear most often? They're black flip-flops. When was the last time you were required to put on a mask? In the morning when I go to the TMS office. And what colour was the last mask you wore? It's one of those normal blue and white medical ones. The last time you were in a queue, what were you waiting for? To see the woman who would give me my APAP mask. Have you had your Covid vaccine yet? Which one, if you have? Yes, Moderna. If you've had your vaccine, did you experience any side effects? None for the first shot, but my second shot bruised badly and I felt seriously shitty the following day. I was perfectly fine afterwards, though. Can any of your friends sing well? Which one has the nicest singing voice? Sara has an AMAAAAAAAAAAAZING voice. When was the last time you wore make-up, if ever? What shades/colours? I don't even remember, but I'm sure it would've been black. What is something that seems popular, but doesn't interest you personally? Fashion, various TV shows, etc... Are you clumsy or graceful? I am STUPID clumsy. Like it's just ridiculous. Do you like gloves? I like fingerless gloves. Does your sibling(s) have braces? My older sister did as a kid. Do you ever say "OMG" in person? No; it's a random pet peeve of mine, "Internet talk" irl. What was the last thing your parents got mad at you for? Dad, no idea. Mom, uhhhh. Not "mad," but "annoyed" probably better fits how she felt about me leaving the heating pad I use for my cramps on the floor. Do your pets have favorites? I'm definitely Roman's favorite seeing as he is my literal shadow, and I'd assume Venus trusts me more than anyone else, but realistically, she's in contact with almost no one else, so. Who was your first boyfriend/girlfriend? Why did you break up? The first guy to have the title of "boyfriend" was Aaron, and I broke up with him 'cuz I just wasn't as romantically into him as I thought I might be. It was puppy-dog love, and I feel I knew that. My first *real* boyfriend was Jason, who broke up with me because my mental illnesses began to affect his wellbeing. Which I now accept is fine, but he seriously coulda gone about things differently... When was the last time you got a new bed? Is your bed comfy? Late into my teenage years; idk the exact age and don't feel like doing the math. Teddy kept peeing on the bed to where it was just unrecoverable and needed to be thrown away. My current bed is comfy enough. What kind of games did you play on the playground when you were younger? My absolute favorite was digging tunnels in the sandbox, pretending to be a meerkat. The only trend I ever created, haha, seeing as my classmates got into it with me, allowing us to make huge tunnel systems. It was really cool. I also liked playing 4 Square (which I now don't even remember the details of) on the basketball court. Do you remember the first time you ever drove a car? Who were you with? Yeah, my driver's ed instructor and the guy who was on the same route as me. What’s your favorite thing to do when drunk? Would you do this sober? N/A Are you a fan of dogs? Do you have any as pets? I'm picky with dogs. I like interacting with any dog, but I don't plan on ever owning another. I don't like how hyper they can be, and I prefer more independent pets, like cats. Basically, I'll be hyped to meet a random dog on the street and give it some loving, but I don't want to take it home to be my own. Are you an elitist (even a little bit) when it comes to anything? What? No. I cannot stand elitists. Is just being fond of something enough, or does it take more than that to be a ‘real fan’? And I hate gatekeeping in fandoms even more. There are varying intensities of "being a fan," but regardless, if you like something, congratulations, you're a valid, "real" fan. What type of fabric is most comfortable for clothing? I don't pay attention to this, honestly. If you wear one – bras with or without a wire? I'll wear either, but without is way more comfortable. If you wear one – are you able to find cute bras in your size? God no. What length do you like your shorts to be? I don’t wear shorts. What was the last disappointing movie you saw? Warcraft, but not because it was bad. I've talked before how in the theater, the orcs' voices were just so fucking baritone that I couldn't understand almost ANYTHING they said. Kinda ruined the experience for me. What was the last disappointing book you read? Don't recall. Do you ever watch compilation videos? Of what? Very rarely. If I do, they're mostly of animals being silly. Favorite Disney character who isn’t royalty? Probably Dory, but idk. There's WAY too many options to fish through.

#survey #surveys #random questions #lyrics: ''this is the kingdom'' by skillet

[rayadraws]

end of an era

Oh my gosh anon, our waiting is OVER. Patiently, not so patiently yearning… wishing… hoping… dreaming… we have IT.

I gotta talk about it, because of course I do, ahhh! This will be long, sorry…

I got my hands on the OVA this morning, about half an hour before work. I watched it, yelled on Discord and then went to work, practically vibrating the whole day until I could go home and watch it again and write down my thoughts!

Before release I had seen what available video clips and screenshots we had, plus a summary given to me by a Japanese mutual, in somewhat limited English. I was unsure what to expect but I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I might! I understand that there’s a lot one can be confused or perhaps even put off by in the OVA but. Well. I enjoy seeing a vulnerable Genos (if like 90 % of the fanfic I’ve written wasn’t an indication lol) so I just ate it all UP. And since I’ve written a fic about him getting amnesia specifically, I was very curious to see how off the mark I was.

I won’t give a proper summary, there’s a good one by Nysh for that. Nor the animation. JC Staff is what JC Staff is. I’m instead going to just… muse and compare and go wild with my own personal headcanons - in that regard, this OVA was excellent, because it does give some hints about what makes Genos tick. Hold on to your butts…

Oh, and need I say that there will be SPOILERS? XD

—

Before I wrote my own amnesia fic, I did some research. So, what is amnesia? Well, the popular TV show version is one thing, of course RL is another. There are several kinds of amnesia, with different causes and different treatments. But the two main categories are longterm memory loss, where you can’t recall past memories (often up to what caused the amnesia) and short term memory loss, where you have difficulty forming new memories. You can get one or both. In my fic, Genos deals with both. In the OVA, he appears to have longterm memory loss only, as he tries to find Fubuki again to help him defeat the monster (if only he knew Saitama would by far have been a better choice!), so he remembers her. Not to mention at the end, when he’s trying desperately to apologize…

There is no instant cure for amnesia. Emotional support is important, medication (if it’s caused by underlying disease, which it can be) and psychological therapy can also be useful. Saitama is doing the right thing in the OVA by remaining calm and trying to avoid agitating Genos or pushing him to remember.

After he first wakes up, Genos is very lost, he only remembers his name and that he’s a cyborg - but not why! It’s really heartbreaking when you think a little more about it - imagine waking up in a cyborg body and not remembering why/how that happened… We actually discussed that on Discord before we had the OVA, what if he wakes up and doesn’t remember… but nahh, that’d be too dark, right? APPARENTLY NOT.

I can’t explain why Genos would be so heavily influenced by media around him as he is. That’s just made up for the humour… but if I were to try to find an actual in-world explanation, hm… Well, we do know he can be a Drama Boy. We also know he tends to be very standoffish and reserved towards most people, which I think is related to his trauma, in a few ways (he doesn’t want to get close to people due to the risk of once again experiencing the pain of losing them - and spending four years more or less on your own during your late teenage years is not an ideal environment for learning how to socialize…). We also know that when Genos finds something or someone he considers important, he latches on. So you could see it as being part of that, perhaps. Lost and confused he looks for anything that would make some kind of sense, trying to find a sense of direction or idea on whom he might be.

What exactly did you forget? Your quest for revenge or the sale you briefly remember later? Knowing Genos, it could be either…

He reacts in confusion to his body telling him that there’s an elevated energy signature nearby - I LOVED this. I wonder if he saw it as a note on his HUD, or if it’s more ingrained, more subtle. The way he got antsy and couldn’t sit still… it’s like his proximity sensors act as an extra sense, like Spiderman’s spider sense…. An extra sense that’s probably saved his life on more than one occasion.

He takes off, feeling like it’s his body moving, not him. I don’t think his body has an separate will of its own, but I have always hc:ed that he probably has systems that can calculate stuff for him mid-fight - how to move, where to release his weapons and at what strength etc. A little helpful internal computer. It’s a LOT for one little monkey brain to keep track of, so it wouldn’t be crazy to think he has some help with that, I think. And here, I don’t think his body is truly moving on his own without him having any control of it… more like muscle memory? Like there are times where I think I’ve forgotten a password to my work computer if I’ve been away for a week but then I sit down and my fingers remember the typing motions on their own. I imagine it’s something like that. He doesn’t know what to do, so he’s going where his instincts tell him.

Fubuki, ah, ever the scheming one. I enjoyed her showing up and being casual at Sai’s place because that’s how I like to write her in my fics. You can see the exact second when she goes into Business Mode, playing hard to get to lure Genos closer. Too bad she didn’t consider just how much his personality changed too, came on way too strong in the end…

And!!! A couple of times Genos puts his hand in defense, without seeminly knowing why, or doing it intentionally really. Hmmmm where…. have I seen this before…

He jumped when a warning flashed at the corner of his vision. It was his proximity sensors going off, his HUD informed him. On instinct, he ducked down behind the nearest tree. He should go back. Kuseno would keep him safe. But if he moved, the stranger might see him too. Don’t turn your back on an enemy.

His sensors told him the direction and the general size of the approaching being, but he couldn’t actually see it between the tall trees. It was moving very fast. He ducked lower, ferns brushing softly against his cheek. On instinct, he held his palm out in front of him, open and pointed at whatever was approaching him.

I am SO glad that I called this in my fic, it’s a small detail but it adds a lot I think! Raising his palm as a threat is second nature to Genos, even when he doesn’t consciously know why he’s doing it…

It’s interesting that throughout, Genos keeps referring to himself as “boku”, which is usually reserved for a male who is younger than 16 (though there are exceptions - Amai Mask also uses it, probably as part of his charming idol persona). Usually Genos refers to himself as “ore”, which is mostly used by adult men, more informal and can be viewed as disrespectful, depending on circumstance (Genos is not typically respectful towards people, if they are not Kuseno or Saitama). Combined with how meek he is, man… Okay, ONE said that before the mad cyborg attack, Genos’ personality was about the same as it is now. So why is he so different? Well… I don’t think that’s too shocking, really. I mean, if you lost all your memories and sense of self, realized you were a cyborg for some reason???, ended up alone in a weird city, not knowing where you were or what to do, and suddenly people pointed at you asking you to fight a terrifying monster even though you have no idea how to fight… you’d probably be terrified too! I think we can assume his personality change is caused by his amnesia. But we can probably also assume that a Genos who never had his village attacked and never got involved with fighting/being a hero would not grow to be exactly the same as canon, anyway. He’d probably be a rude brat… but yeah. At least a few degrees less aggressive/ready to throw down!

Again with the hand!

A thought I had reading the exchange between the monster and Genos… it reads almost like how you might expect Genos’ meeting with the mad cyborg might have looked like, only in a sad, reverse kind of way. These lines - “I’m not ready yet… I’m not ready to die here… not yet!” - like, dude… that sounds exactly what might have gone through his head back then. Maybe the first inkling of his past returning to him at that second…

He feels something, remembers something, is shocked.. and it comes back… “I cannot win like this!”. And then he remembers Kuseno, and Saitama…

Once more, those lines together: “I’m not ready yet… I’m not ready to die here… not yet! I cannot win like this!”

We’ll probably never get it verified, but I find it very, very likely he used more or less these exact words, or something very similar, after meeting the mad cyborg.

Also, as much as I appreciate the closeness between Genos and Saitama, I AM glad that he remembered Kuseno first - he’s known Kuseno for four years, Saitama for less than 2 months, when this takes place. It’s only right and it fits very well with his character introduction too, where he thought he was dying and his last thought was an apology to Kuseno. A nice nod. I enjoyed that animation sequence a lot too!

When he remembers who he is, Genos feels so bad about his actions but he still can’t deny what he said before… Saitama’s face… omg… Bless them both.He brings Saitama wild/game meat - d'ya figure he bought it or, um… got it for free? I mean, that’s… exactly the kind of creature he fought… maybe he’s learnt Sensei’s ways…

And Saitama is happy he’s back. He cares about Genos! He likes him like he is, as intense and blunt and socially awkward as he is! What a sweet note to end the OVA on!

#opm s2 #ova 3 #anime spoilers #ova spoilers #amnesia #ahhhhAAAAAHHH

[tayyabarhsad-blog]

Utopia A New Decentralized Ecosystem And Blockchain

Utopia — Revolutionary Decentralized P2P Ecosystem

Would it fascinate you if you would stumble upon a decentralized peer-to-peer ecosystem that consists of instant secure messenger, mail system, mineable cryptocurrency, file storage and a built-in browser ?

If any of the above mentioned aspects and the video you just watched got your attention, you are in for a great treat today. Keep on reading because you will be impressed with what I am going to share.

Email with Digital Utopian Claims

It started with an ordinary outreach email , where the media firm was asking for advertisement of their ‘Program’ , but when I read through the email and the claims it made I was certain that either its another scam or something really big (i was bit inclined towards the scam thing) , quoting text from email

We spent more than five years secretly working on its development. At the moment, it is at a beta stage and we are ready to introduce it to the community. With your help, we would like to invite as many beta testers and specialists in this sphere as possible to take part in the testing of our product. You can also help us to inform the community about the launch of our beta testing and to tell people about our unique solution.

30MilesNorth PR Firm further outsourced their campaign to another marketing firm while ‘CryptoHill.io’ didn’t even bother to get back to me when I replied to the email. Not a good start.

Update: CryptoHill contacted and outsourced 30MileNorth and not the other way.

Little I knew that my opinions would change when would visit their beta portal and as I started digging , I found the concept intriguing with potential and an actual ‘working’ beta product for us to take out for a ride.

Utopia — Anti 1984 Ecosystem

Utopia is a decentralized peer-to-peer network, With Utopia you can send instant text and voice messages, transfer files, create group chats and channels, send emails and conduct a private discussion. Currently Utopia is an application for Windows, iOS and Linux which offers all the features within one application. Utopia users get on their ‘Utopia ecosystem‘ as the application also provides a built-in Idyll browser to view websites within Utopia peer-to-peer network . Utopia comes with a Cryptocurrency which is called ‘Crypton‘ and is Proof-of-Stake. uWallet allows you to store,transfer your Crypton(CRP) or even create vouchers and credit cards, Utopia Network includes Utopia Name System (UNS) which is a decentralized registry of names that are impossible to expropriate, freeze or corrupt by 3rd-party as no one has control over the system rather its self-governed by rules set in place which are applicable to everyone. After you join Utopia you may wanna drop by our Hackology channel, which you can search in the Channel Manager

JOIN UTOPIA

Register yourself as a Beta Tester, Contributor or a Promoter. Each category gets to enjoy the ecosystem while the rewards vary (reward system will be explained shortly).

Utopia ecosystem is a culmination of multi-year effort by a group of technology enthusiasts dedicated to freedom of self-expression and privacy. We call ourselves a 1984 Group. Among us there are top-notch professionals in almost every IT field, such as cryptographic, software, networking engineers and many more. This has been a long and challenging journey. After all this had never been done before! Finally, we present an ecosystem that will change the way World communicates and handles financial transactions.

Utopia brief taken from their official website. Mentioning ‘financial transactions’ makes one wonder that Bitcoin was also disrupting the conventional financial system

Utopia Encryption

Each user participates in transmission of network data but only the recipient can decrypt the data. Advanced encryption ensures interception-proof communication channel to all Utopia users. All communication is secure and protected by Curve25519 high-speed elliptic curve cryptographywhile local storage is encrypted by 256-bit AES. Big Brother is no longer watching you!

Installing Utopia

Once you register on the Beta Portal you have to download Utopia Application. After installing the application you will be given a Hardware ID and a Private Key, these keys are required to activate your beta license which can be done from the Activation Page. Please keep in mind that your beta portal website login credentials are not linked with Utopia Application and you can have a different username for the app and the website. Once you activate the license your utopia account will be tied with your beta portal account. A step by step procedure for easy understanding of the activation procedure:

Register at Utopia Beta Portal

Download Utopia software

Install the program by following simple instructions on installation wizard

Run Utopia and Create your account. You will be provided with Public Key and Hardware ID. Those are needed to activate your Utopia software

Login to your account

Click on JOIN BETA

Agree to the Rules and click SUBMIT

Click on NEW ACTIVATION and Enter Public Key and Hardware ID

Click ADD

Now your Utopia is activated and you are ready to test it

Utopia Dashboard

Utopia is a feature-rich platform that is specifically designed to protect privacy of communication, confidentiality and security of personal data. It was created for privacy-conscious public who believe that privacy is paramount. Utopia is a decentralized network, with no central server involved in data transmission or storage. The network is supported by people who use it’s many high quality features.

The first glimpse we get of the application is at the Dashboard which has navigational menu for easy access to all of its many features for us to explore, use and report bugs while it is in beta testing phase.

uMail (Utopia Mail)

uMail is a secure alternative to classic e-mail. uMail can be sent to Utopia users that are in your contact list for now. uMail has all functionality of email localized to Utopia ecosystem. No servers are used for mail transmission or storage. uMail account, that is created by default when you join the Utopia network, enables unlimited messaging and attachment storage. Utopia ecosystem encryption guarantees the security of mail transmission and storage. Your uMail, as an internal part of Utopia, cannot be blocked or seized.

All those who value their data privacy would find this useful including activists and journalists knowing that their data is going straight to the designated user and no 3rd party can intercept their data. Currently the limit set for the attachments is 100 MB but as per the team it may be increased in future.

uWallet (Utopia Wallet)

All financial functionality can be found in Utopia built-in uWallet. uWallet allows you to make and accept payments denominated in Utopia cryptocurrency ‘Crypton‘, accept payments at your website, pay by Crypto Cards without revealing your Identity or bill fellow Utopia users for your services. With uWallet you can store value in Cryptons, receive mining rewards, use uVouchers, request payments and accept payments using the built-in API.

All of this while you remain anonymous. All payments are instant and cannot be reversed. Decentralized nature of Utopia ensures that your balance cannot be expropriated.

Utopia Mining — Crypton

Utopia has an inbuilt cryptocurrency called Crypton (CRP), which is proof-of-stake therefore a modest machine can also be used to mine cryptons through the GUI based Utopia application or with terminal based Mining bot which comes with the application.

Utopia rewards users that support the ecosystem through Mining by emission of new Cryptons. When you run your Utopia software or bot you will receive your share of collective reward. Mining does not slow your computer down and is environmentally friendly. You may also run a number of bots at several servers or computers to multiply the Crypton mining speed.

uNS (Utopia Naming System)

Utopia has introduced uNS (Utopia Naming System) which is a unique naming system and independent from the conventional Domain Naming System. DNS is subject to pressure and censorship from less than prefect international laws. Domains can be revoked or suspended due to multiple reasons, such as non-response to WhoIS inquiry or other register policies, non-payment, government actions and so on.

uNS, in contrast, is a truly decentralized non-censored registry hosted by Utopia Network participants with no expiration dates, renewal fees, suspensions and revocations. There is only one rule: First come, First served.

uNS registered name should be unique. You may register as many uNS registered names as you want while registration is not free and costs are paid in crypton:

Single letter uNS costs 1000 CRP

Two letter uNS costs 500 CRP

Three letter uNS costs 5 CRP

Four letter or more costs 0.1 CRP

Miscellaneous Features

Making Groups, Adding users, Chatting and Emailing, Sending Mails and Mining Cryptons might be the highlights but Utopia claims to be an ecosystem therefore they had to incorporate many more features so that users of Utopia ecosystem do not feel the need to go out of the system. List of other useful features within the Utopia Application are listed

Packet Forwarding : uNS Manager lists option of ‘Packet Forwarding’ which is an internal system allowing any utopian user to host a website which can be accessed by the Idyll browser, the naming system of the website is explained above, if you register hackology uNS you can make a website and it will open when you visit http://hackology/ and that is it. This option allows to tunnel any kind of data between users in ecosystem, making possible to host different types of resources including websites inside Utopia Network. At the time of writing few fellow Utopia users made Utopia sites which can be accessed at utopia://trade/ and at utopia://crystalforest etc. If you have ported your site to Utopia let me know so I may add it here aswell. I am ported some of my sites to Utopia aswell, utopia://blog.drhack.net , utopia://paste.drhack.net, utopia://drhack.net can all be accessed in Idyl Browser inside utopia.

File Manager : All files which are sent or received in Utopia can be accessed from the builtin file manager which also includes an image viewer. As of now the file transfers are limited to 100MB.

Voice Notes : Utopia also supports sending and receiving of Voice messages which you can send to those who are added with you.

Dark Theme : The program comes in standard theme but how can they miss out a Dark Theme for the privacy savvy ? Users can opt for dark theme by going to Tools > Settings > Interface and selecting the ‘Dark Space‘ theme

Utopia API : Utopia comes with a comprehensive API for users to incorporate in their own projects. For instance, using API you can accept payments denominated in Crypton at your website, automatically manage your channels, send instant messages and much more. To get started once you enable the API you can also access the API documentation.

Network Fee Structure : Utopia provides us with an option to view all the network enforced fee and they are updated live on the network as the fee structure changes, thus one can stay updated with the current fee structure. You can access the Network Fee from uWallet > Treasury Data > Network Fee

Game : Utopia also supports in-app games which can be played in multiplayer, as of writing there is a working Chess game.

File Storage / Hosting : A team user nickname 1984 in Utopia Chat Lobby mentioned that as of now there is no File storage. But In future Utopia will have some kind of music and video streaming online services, decentralized file, image and blog hosting. The reserved amount of RAM for mining ‘ll be used as cache for the whole network. For example 1,300,000 online users with current RAM allocation will provide about 1 Petabyte of raw storage for caching purposes.

Utopia Reward System

Utopia is providing a very lucrative reward system, where Beta Testers, Contributors & Promoters all can join the beta portal and help test and find bugs which in return gets you ‘pts‘ where 1 pt equals to 1 USD which are paid in BTC.

We truly believe that your participation has to be exciting and mutually beneficial. Utopia Beta Program rewards your enthusiasm, commitment and dedication. No matter what is your skill set you will find an opportunity to contribute to Utopia P2P Project development.

At the time of writing I have already cashed out $560 and transferred them to my own bitcoin wallet. I can vouch that if you have the eye to spot bugs it is a good place to help them and in return get paid. Uptil now Utopia team has paid out $7683 to beta testers which is a decent figure keeping in view that they launched 35 days back and still 2 months of beta testing period is left.

If you are not a bug finding sort you can still help and give them suggestions and ideas on how to improve their application or go ahead and share this on social media pages and get paid for being a ‘promoter’. Withdrawals are done manually and as per the rule it can take up-to 48 hours, but I have noticed that within an hour or so they release the funds.

Do Earn but DONT SPAM they have mentioned categorically that have zero spam tolerance

Trust Utopia or NOT

Utopia might be very good project but it does give birth to some questions.

Anonymous Creators : Here is an example, Utopia was created by a group of LEA’s to cater for a particular drug mafia and they made an app for it and will let it float and gain credibility and as we don’t know who made the App we have no idea to know what the ‘real’ intent was.

Closed Source : Lets not disclose the owners but why would the App source be closed ? Ok Fine it is not infected with malware but how can the community trust a closed source eco-system ? How can we take their word for it ?

Forced Alteration : Another scenario is that we don’t know but somehow the founders of the application are exposed at some level and are being forced to enter backdoor into the software what indications will we have that it is still pure ?

Long Way to Go : Utopia will be out of Beta by October 2019 , there are alot of things which the team is actively addressing and improving. Many of the queries will also be answered by then aswell and having an alternative in this era is a great thing. An alternative which is not monitored and controlled and promises to give us the privacy of our data which we deserve and is our right.

Peers Control : In later stages the peer count might increase to give stability to the system but blocking network peers by an ISP could result in disrupting the ecosystem, as of now we have 8–14 peers to which our Utopia network connects and the transmission although encrypted goes to these IP addresses which are in clear plain-text. As the network is closed source, only those peers can be add to the network which are selected by Utopia Team thus the process would require constant involvement of the team to keep the network running and stabilized. What Software is run on the Peers ? No one knows answer to that until one day someone exploits a system running the network-peer-control-system.

Utopia Team Responds

I asked the queries from Utopia to get their feedback, I raised the same questions which I have stated above, carry on to read their response

Anonymous Creators : I have to say that given the scope and nature of the project, disclosing the identity of creators is not really an option. Think about it, Utopia ecosystem is literally a game changer in secure communication. There is no need to worry about censorship, surveillance, deanonymization and so on. The software is destined to make an impact and that impact comes with unpredictable consequences. We simply do not want our team to be subjected to any kind of pressure.

Closed Source : We may disclose certain parts of code, specifically related to communication and encryption. However, decentralized protocol will not be released. Utopia is a very knowledge intensive software. A lot of time, effort and resources went into this product and we do not want to share all of our know-how as it will result in forks which in turn may result in instability of our main network. Fork will lead to division of the community, while our intention is unification of community of like-minded individuals. The bottom line here is that a lot of software is closed source and this does not hurt them a bit.

Forced Alteration : In addition to the Anonymous Creators point, we can implement a warrant canary and place it right into About section of software.

Community Trust Options : On Anonymous Founders and Source Code, we will try to think about other ideas that will assure community to trust Utopia.

Peer Control : Peers are people who use Utopia and mining bots. Obviously they are the key to network stability and performance as they provide connectivity i.e. they participate in data transmission in encrypted mode. The reason why we implemented such an unusual mining model, is that we want to motivate and reward users to stay online/keep bots online hence provide a lot of routing options. If a peer is disconnected, Utopia client will automatically connect to another peer and so on.

Crypton on External Crypto Exchanges : The decision to list Crypton is the discretion of the exchanges. However, we plan to implement our own built-in exchange.

Why Crypton : Crypton is meant to serve as means of payment within Utopia. It is fast and convenient to use. The fees collected will go towards maintaining the network and is a way to control total amount of Cryptons in circulation. Mining, by definition, is emission. Fees, on the other hand, is a way to compensate for this emission by extracting the Cryptons from circulation.

Conclusion

I am impressed by Utopia ecosystem and we should let such systems mature so that they can reach their true potential because I truly believe we need a system were our privacy and our data can stay truly ours, a system where my messages are delivered and read by the recipient I intend sending too, a system where my identity stays private as long as I want it. As of now internet is changing into a place where our identity and our privacy is sold to make other companies profit, profits are done by selling us off. Many say that they do not mind if their data is sold off — It is a matter of time those will also realize the hard way that how much it costs when you are being sold off. Join Utopia, Become a Tester and be part of something unique.

[salavante]

that character ask thing, how about August en Zaied?? :3c

That funky, hunky elf. 

Full Name: August en Zaied

Gender and Sexuality: Male and mostly Heterosexual. I think there is the off-chance fellow that might pique his interest, but not at a frequency that I think he would self-describe himself as bisexual.

Pronouns: he/him

Ethnicity/Species: Umbran Elf. I talked about this a little bit in Ganzrig’s thing, but most people on Ismes have a different race back in their heritage at some point, and individuals will look a little more or less human depending on how many actual humans are back in their ancestry. August is on the more human-y side of the spectrum. 

Birthplace and Birthdate: I don’t tend to give birthdates to characters who do not use the same calendar systems as us. Maybe he was born in winter, ironically. August’s family formerly lived in one of the Umbran Empire’s capitol cities, and he was probably born on the family estate.

Guilty Pleasures: Not a ton. August is a very serious, dignified person and doesn’t put himself at risk of looking silly very often. He’ll smoke tobacco on occasion and likes his wine and port. He also knows how to play the accordion but just barely…which, really means that he doesn’t know how to play it at all, HAH. August also has a fondness for roses, as his mother had a garden on their old estate that she was very proud of. One thing he is guilty about is that after being exposed to and promptly rejecting most new technology…he really does prefer using an electric razor to a straight razor and no one can ever know. I think that’s his one true guilty pleasure. If someone caught him using it he’d be absolutely mortified.

Phobias: Oh wow I can actually fill this one out as god and OP intended, because August is a shipwreck survivor and now has a phobia of drowning and deep water, which is a shame because he’s a sailor by trade and formerly really loved the ocean. I do think it’s something he can work through if he tries, though.

What They Would Be Famous For: As far as August is concerned, he would prefer to not be famous for anything, ever, and that everyone would just leave him to his own business. Unfortunately, he has a moderate cult following on The Hunt for having a unique powerset and being kind of a dreamboat.  

What They Would Get Arrested For: August is fairly lawful and coolant headed, so, not a ton, but if he were doing something to ensure the safety and wellness of his family, he’d go to some pretty far lengths. There’s a perfectly serviceable AU out there where August is a mercenary, pirate or assassin.

OC You Ship Them With: August was never actually envisioned as being a ladies man, but it’s just what happened along the way. All of the ladies he has slept with in-game have been older than him, so I guess he likes mature women, HAH. I enjoy the chemistry between August and Jake’s character Elias, who is a silver tongued cannibal and a privateer, go figure. It’s kind of a classic chemistry, sailor-hero type and pirate. Many moons ago, when August was first conceived and was still a female character, his love interest was a half-orc bard named Benji, but he’s since been written out of August’s original story and has been replaced byyy….Iona Howell, August’s canon love interest. The ferocious, emotionally unstable illuminator/wizard who is trying her best to get her shit together, and August’s on and off again girlfriend.

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Pre-defection Iona was probably capable of killing August in a manic/jealous rage, though I think at the end of the day August is more powerful than her and would probably have killed her first as long as she didn’t get the drop on him. Ganzrig also threatened to slaughter and dismember him, but that’s just what Orcs do, I don’t know if she would have actually killed him.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: August is from an early/mid 1800’s level society and so movies really overstimulate to the point that he generally avoids them. He resists most new technology at first blush and is very, very stubborn, though there are a few benefits that he cannot deny. He’s not really much of a reader either, his education stopped when he was somewhere between the ages of 12-14 so he reads kind of slow and his own handwriting isn’t very good, but that still puts him at an advantage among other sailors. He probably likes poetry because a) the ladies like to be read poetry and b) it’s something that could be easily translated into song or read aloud, which is his preferred method of receiving media. Epic poems, sea shanties, etc. August would go to a play before he would go to a movie, and would be perfectly entertained by being read aloud to.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: August used to be an atheist before his world’s god, Al Fortuna, decided that he was their new favorite person. Now he just thinks Gods are assholes and generally does not like any media that presents gods as anything other than fickle and more trouble than they’re worth. And he absolutely, tremendously hates the idea of things being ordained by “fate”.

Talents and/or Powers: A couple fun ones! August is ambidextrous and can wield a pistol and sabre at the same time, and is in generally very nimble. But the most notable thing about him is that August possesses a passive ability called the Miasma of Misfortune, which is tied to Ganzrig’s Fortune’s Favor. While bad luck does not fall on August’s own head, he exudes an aura of bad luck to people in his vicinity, which gets worse the longer that he is exposed to them without reprieve. August has learned to manipulate the Miasma to a degree, and can either reel it in or dump all of its focus on a single target, usually ending with some foolish prick stabbing himself on ‘accident’. Celair has also been teaching him some cantrips. He is from a low-magic setting, so he is not very magically potent.

Why Someone Might Love Them: August is easy to become infatuated with, but not easy to be in a relationship with, and there is a string of broken hearted maidens behind him. He is dashing and courageous, with an intriguingly intense personality, and is confident, but not in a way that dips into vanity. He’s also very earnest, a reliable, straightforward man that keeps his head on straight and seldom shows his temper (though when he does, watch the fuck out). Though not an intellectual, August is very cunning, and has a dry sense of humor that some appreciate. He’s also quite chivalrous, and I think there is a very classical, romantic element to him.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: When I say that August is not easy to be in a relationship with, it’s because he’s a vault and values his privacy to a fault. He seldom wears his heart on his sleeve, and prefers to keep his stronger emotions to himself, for better or worse, and has trouble expressing his feelings even when it’d be in his interest to. He’s the most stubborn man alive, and would sooner double down on something than let someone he doesn’t like be right, making him just a little spiteful. August is resistant to too much external change, especially with technology. He’s also quite dreadfully serious and finds people who are too goofy kind of offputting (ex: he tolerates Wybjorn, but probably wouldn’t have anything to do with him if they did not have friends in common). Someone may also find his priorities shrewd at first glance - his number one concern is providing for his family, and so he is easily motivated by money. Because he is very private, he is not likely to divulge information on his personal life, leading his motivations often obscured and at times misinterpreted. He does not care very much about what other people think, and so seldom clarifies. 

How They Change: August changes a bit over the course of Godslaughter, but not very much, as he has mostly existed in an NPC capacity. The thing he will have to learn is to be emotionally candid with his family when he returns home, because they are going to have a lot of questions and he’s not going to want to answer any of them, but he HAS to. And things aren’t going to be the way he left them. Most of August’s challenges in this department are on the horizon.

Why You Love Them: August has a somewhat colorful meta history. He is my oldest character that I still use regularly (at over 5 years old) besides Calvin, and he was conceived at not a very good point in my life. I had been quietly struggling with my gender identity for many years, and had found myself pushing against my constraints in fiction, but by the time I got to the original August, I was exhausted and beaten down. The first pass at August was a very sad, somber character that was a lady crossdressing to work as a sailor. I’d hit on something important, but wasn’t really ready to open myself up to what it might mean, which, aside from being conceived during the worst year of my life, lead to Kismet collecting dust. Fastforward to 2018 when I was looking for Gods for Godslaughter, and remembered that I had always liked Al Fatima and Al Fortuna, and took another look at August by association. By now I was out as transmasc and decided it’d be a good step for myself to retool August into a character that I could be proud of - a confident, earnest person who wanted nothing more than to be the captain of his own fate and to protect and provide for the people he loves. I don’t really like talking publicly about my trans-ness, I (like August) have come to the conclusion it’s not really anyone’s business but mine, but my journey is inseparable from him. And that’s ok. August is my tiny hope that someday I can get a genre fiction story to a publisher that’s about a trans person, but is not about his transition or his coming out.

#claricehopeful

[passionandpurposeblog-blog]

Sexuality: No More to say and so over it

A few months after my long term girlfriend and I split up, I ended up in bed with Phillip, A nice guy that I’d known for some time. During the post-sex talk, he turns and asks “So does that mean you’re straight now?” 

“LMFAO” 

‘You’ve got a nice cock and I had a great orgasm, …..but you haven’t awoken anything in me that wasn’t already there. You cannot ‘make’ me straight and no one forced me to fuck you’ 

Infact, No one else would sexually awaken anything in me. Not the next guy after Phil, or the guy after that guy, or the girl after the guy after Phil. The list goes on and the list started waaaay back into my early teens. I've always been open, I was experimenting with drugs and people at a young age, I had a threesome with a guy and a girl when I was just 18. When I look back, I must admit that was very young for such an experience, but I just went with the flow. I don’t regret it, but I wish I had done it at a later age to really make the most of it and have the emotional maturity that you need to go with it. 

I’ve been listening to an interview with Kate Pierson (B52’s) and she has recently married her long term partner, a woman that she has dated for 15 years. She said that she had always dated men, and was even married before and that this lady came along and bang she was in love, just like that. Kate Pierson is now 71, So this is her 55-year-old self experiencing a major transition and shift in her life. Whilst trawling through the B52s back catalog online I read so many comments from random fans. ‘She's a lesbian’ ‘I never knew’ ‘But she was married to so and so’ and this is exactly the snooze fest that I am writing about today. Yawn...... If she spent 40 years with different men and now met a woman, perhaps shes just er just bisexual? And more importantly, shouldn’t we be interested in the music and her voice? As much as I love her, when all is said and done I don’t really want to think about the bedroom antics of a 71-year-old yknow.  

What is it with the labels?  

It’s like no one is comfortable until they know exactly which box you belong in, and if you stray from that box then their tiny minds scramble and system overload occurs. ‘ANNOUNCE YOURSELF AT ONCE’ ‘What are you?’ and ‘Don’t you dare have options or change, it doesn’t fit with the label I’ve prescribed you’.  

Before we label Kate a lesbian, how about we mention that she’s a brilliant talented vocalist with over 40 years in the band? Or is that how we are defining her now ‘The lesbian’?. *Insert laughing emoji here* 

“Bisexuals always get dumped on,” says Cynthia Nixon from Sex in the City...The Media has too labeled her a lesbian when much like Kate Pierson, she was in fact with men and entered into this new world later on in her life. It’s like now we must erase her whole previous life and deny that any man has ever come close to her! How dare she now turnaround and say she's’ attracted to men! How fucking dare she, she’s lesbian property now and she has no voice! She never said she was anything, You did!   

I thought, ‘I get it! I get You, I just get it’. She’s attracted to people, they may be male or they may be female yet shes being kettled to a place she never asked to be. It really is that simple. Should her current relationship end, nothing stops her going back to men, dating another woman or even staying single. Your past partners do not mean that your future self is set in stone. It’s not difficult to understand really is it?  

But! And there is a But!  

Say Cinthia and her gf/wife did break up and she dated a man. She won’t find it that easy, because of what I call, the whole ‘lesbian fragility’ - Gay women who pride themselves on being with women and only women and god fucking forbid should you show any interest in a guy. Well, You are now damaged goods my girl. A sell-out, banished!....exiled from the pride....like the Lioness in last weeks BBC Planet Earth. How can you and the gay community ever really watch the L Word again together or listen to Ani Difranco in the same way? ‘It’s just not the same’ they’ll whine.  

I’m being serious. There is a reverse discrimination within the gay community! I’ve seen it first hand. I’ve seen a few women in same sex relationships end, then go for a guy and their ‘friends’ no longer feel the same way about them, there’s no time to hang out anymore and she is “too busy with her straight friends”.  

Awwwww did someone emasculate you? 

I’ve never really enjoyed the company of gay women if I'm honest. I always found their friendships forged on sharing of sexual preference rather than common interest, views or hobbies. I usually think their haircuts are shit and they present me with this feeling where they are unsure if they want to fuck me or fight me. Very awkward, not to mention its a very childish and incestuous scene.  

I have seen this so many times with women, either in a same sex or opposite and then switch later on down the line which is what I mean about experience and just understanding those around you. I think a lot of women are on the bi spectrum. Not all, no, but a lot are, and sexuality is fluid.  About three months ago my cock hungry straight friend told me she’d met some woman online and is now having the best sex of her life! Great, wonderful, Whoppie.  So how do I label her? …....‘Err Mary’......... I label her Mary. I can’t really call her cock hungry right now, so I’ll just label her ‘Hungry Mary’. 

One of my oldest friends is gay – full blown lesbian, never been with a guy but totally cool with every bi girl that has. She and I sit on a different part of the spectrum, but she gets it and like myself she gives those around her that mutual respect and safe space to be who they are. If she turned around tomorrow and said she’s dating a guy, I wouldn’t be shocked, not because she has ever indicated that she likes guys, but simply because people change.  

I know three guys that have also experimented with other guys, would identify as straight and two of the three have long term girlfriends and kids. I just think at the time they took the ‘any holes a goal’ attitude and like my younger self, just went with the flow. 

As we age and grow the fuck up, this should be more accepted and we should just allow people to do who and what they want without the questions, especially the silly questions. It’s really mind numbingly boring, not to mention so nosey!? Jeez, get your own life in order. Despite my ramblings, I'm actually a pretty private person.  I just don’t discuss my private life or anyone I’m dating, I have so many transient non-committal interactions with people that I just don’t feel I need to. 

 I’ve been chatting to some people for ages, and I still wouldn’t discuss parts of my life with them. I keep my circle so small, and If we don’t click like that, we don’t click like that. It’s cool, because there is far more to me and far more to you than who we have in our beds right? I cant imagine meeting someone and asking them, “so what are ya?” CRINGE. I’d die. I’ve got some friends that I’ve spoken to for years, we’ve had really great conversations and it’s never occurred to me to stop and ask ‘do you have a partner? Are you gay?’  

The small circle of friends that I have know me, they get me and that’s my safe space.  

I do find some of the questions and statements really annoying, and if I’m honest just plain weird. I have an irritating male friend in that likes to continually remind me that I’m attracted to women, and of course, there is no way that I can be attracted to men, because I’m not attracted to him..... *eye roll* Dick! It’s like me saying to someone, ‘but you said you like mixed raced girls, so why don’t you like me’ it’s really really weird and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Its uncomfortable because he cannot address or acknowledge his own fascination with bisexuality and cannot stop mentioning it every time he sees me? He makes out he is cool and open-minded, yet I seem to be the topic of convo or butt of his jokes. Address your homophobia or your weird unrequited sexualisation of me whatever the issue is. Seek help mate, Your issue not mine. 

I cannot recall being asked what two women do in bed, but I have heard of it being asked to other people. It’s hilarious. I honestly believe that if you are over 25 and cannot work that out then you have a really dull imagination and I’d bet you are not very experienced. Not necessarily in bedding two women at once, but just in experiencing people; hearing their stories, watching porn, understanding their anatomy and physiology. OR You are being a menace and condescending..... I’ve never seen two men at it live, but I’m pretty sure I know how it goes down ;-)  

Sometime ago I spent a fair amount of time at a bdsm sex dungeon helping out an old friend. Id mostly film her sessions, and now and then Id help out by giving some guys the odd little kick in the nuts etc. Boy, I could write a whole new blog on that experience LOL! I saw some things!  

Meeting all the different types of people that came in the dungeon really opened my eyes to the world of sex and sexuality and just what turns people on. You really cannot judge what people are into, and you’d never know. It’s funny, the ‘geezers’ that make the gay jokes about bumming are often the same ones that ask the women to wear strap ons ;-). People have their quirks and their kinks, they just hide it well BELIEVE me. 

I’ve seen a lot and I’m very open and not much phases me, but because I’m not phased, or excited by the gossip or the fascination of it all I'm over it. …....over the labels, the questions, the presumptions, opinions and the basic inability to let people do what they want in peace. So because of this I decided a long time ago that I’m actually over my sexuality and stopped speaking about it  back in my twenties. 

Yawn.  

No one owns me and no one dictates.

I’m not anything, I’m just me in that particular point of time. No path is set and I answer to no one except who’s in my bed. 

Keep your own truth

#sexulaity #bisexuality fragility homophobia lgbt straight labels b52s #sexuality #cockhungry

[tenspontaneite]

Paper Cranes Q&A 3

Topics covered: ‘disease’ progression, lots of things related to Sai and metaphysics, spiritually sensitive canon characters, What’s Up With Touya’s Weird Soul, technicalities and things and stuff. 20 questions covered in total.

Spoilers for: Up to end of chapter 22. Maybe some very slight hints of things to come.

When exactly will Hikaru begin feeling effects of his Problem?

Well. Uh. Spoilers? But like I said in the notes, it’s not going to get Very Bad during the timeframe of the story. The reincarnation-AU I’ve been planning is another matter entirely though since it’s set at least 15 years later Also while dysautonomia can lead to tremors, which would make it difficult to play Go, different patients may experience very different symptoms based on which parts of the nervous system are damaged first. So…it’s not guaranteed he wouldn’t be able to play Go. It’s just possible that at some point he’d have bad enough tremors to possibly launch Go stones across the room by accident instead of placing them. Or accidentally majorly mess up the stones surrounding where he placed his. Etc.

 If Sai came back, would be be able to fill up Hikaru’s soul and stop the degeneration?

Well, hypothetically, any possessing spirit could do this. Not just Sai. But it works best between physically similar souls – the more similar they are, the easier they mesh. That’s another reason why Sai’s soul-bits stick around like they do. The lingering emotion and intent isn’t the only thing there. Very dissimilar souls would passively damage each other in such a possession, so even a benevolent possessing spirit would have a hard time not hurting its host.

 Are there other spiritually sensitive canon characters?

Kuwabara is the only one I’d class as actually sensitive enough to be aware, so to speak. But there are others who are….predisposed, let’s say, to being sensitive, and becoming more sensitive. That should be talked about relatively soon in the story. Next few chapters maybe.

 What’s up with Touya’s unusual looking soul?

See the above question. It’s highly relevant. The Touya males certainly aren’t the only ones, either.

 Will Touya find out?

Spoilers!

 Will Yashiro find out?

…Spoilers!

 Why was Nurse Furutani so suspicious?

She is good at noticing Obvious Things, like the tension between Hikaru and Touya, and is watchful for any hint that Touya might commit the cardinal sin of Upsetting A Patient or even Causing A Ruckus. After a while she determines that their discussion is probably okay and leaves.

 Is there a way to heal soul damage in a living human?

Absolutely not. It’s a fundamental property of souls anchored in a true physical body that the soul can’t significantly change in form whilst anchored. This includes growing, healing, or changing ‘shape’. Embodied spirits work differently. Reincarnated major spirits and kami work slightly differently.

 Wouldn’t calling out the grid position only work if Touya was on Hikaru’s side of the board?

Now, I’m no experienced Go player, but considering how frequently people might be required to place moves recited by a speaker (e.g. one person reads from kifu, other person places) I always assumed they defaulted to Black’s side of the board, because that would make sense. If anyone more familiar with this stuff than me knows otherwise, do let me know, and I’ll add it to the minor-edits-list.

 Can humans make donations to Hikaru?

I….well…uh….they could??? If you got someone (Hikaru or a spirit) to rip out a chunk of their soul, yes, yes they could. But 1) human souls are far more viscerally entrenched than disembodied souls and it’s far, far more traumatic to remove parts of them than it is for disembodied spirits, 2) the damage to them would never heal until they were dead, and they’d become a possession target without the advantage of Huge Leftover Energy that Hikaru has, and 3) most human souls are like…small. Bits of them are even smaller. They wouldn’t be very useful donations. They’d last like, a few days. Certainly no longer than a week.

 Is Hikaru going to feel better about the early expiration date when he thinks about how Shuusaku died at 33?

Well…no. No? I mean, in general, ‘x person I never knew had it worse’ is not really consolation for ‘my own situation is downright shitty’. And really, while Torajirou would have been Extremely Screwed if Sai ever left him (over ten years of possession, yikes) his death from disease was unpleasant but relatively quick in comparison. I mean. Degenerative diseases are awful, okay.

Also I’m very fond of the way you worded that. ‘Expiration date’. Hah.

 Is it weird that I want to write fanfic of your fanfic?

You know what, no, I don’t think it is. I’m definitely not biased on the matter, nope. Also at some point I’m going to be writing fanfic of my fanfic, so.

 Is Sai aware, wherever he is?

SPOILERS.

 What does Utagawashi’s usual outfit look like?

Like this. https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/shinto-priests-at-meiji-shrine-during-ceremony-picture-id597589563

Basically very similar to what Sai wears. Also that picture contains the priestly baton things that I’ve mentioned in the story a couple of times.

 Does Hikaru get any foxy qualities from the bits of fox soul he’s using as adhesive?

As Hikaru is a Live Human, his soul cannot undergo any significant form changes. The soul bits are extremely personal but can’t influence the nature of Hikaru’s soul.

 Could it be argued that Hikaru’s aptitude for Go comes from Sai’s soul/energy?

No. I would like to outright, unequivocally word-of-author this: Hikaru’s talent is his own. He is good at Go, and has a talent for it. The end.

What could have plausibly been influenced by Sai is his enthusiasm and enjoyment of Go, but only via the same sort of cross-contamination as seeing a friend of yours be really enthusiastic about something. More intense, because he can directly feel the emotions of Sai on the matter, but same concept. As mentioned before, live human souls are highly resistant to forcible form changes. Modification of interests and talents certainly falls under that.

Also plausible: Sai’s instincts and impulses with regard to the game might have carried over during the active possession, which would have helped him learn faster. It would have been very subtle, though. And the traces remaining now are not nearly cohesive and sapient enough to have that sort of effect.

 Would the Gigantic Spirit Boom Pillar be detectable to exorcists/priests outside of the city?

As a rule, no. Hikaru would feel something like that. Probably Kaminaga too, at this point. Anyone else would have to be very close, as very few living humans are that sensitive to the currents in the spirit layer.

Spirits, though? They live in the spirit layer. I’d say every spirit in Japan and many others further out would have felt the ripples. Any particularly powerful spirit would have felt it on the other side of the globe. Suffice to say, every spirit in Japan knows that Something Big went down, and gossip and word-of-mouth is sufficient for them to know that it was Ancient Demon specifically who went down. There’s...so, so many rumours among spirits, right now.

 Would foxes enjoy soap operas?

Well. Based on individual tastes, I guess? They are generally all quite mischievous by nature and will be far more interested in what they can witness personally or perpetrate personally than in the antics of fictional characters. But that’s subject to individual differences as it is in humans. Some will prefer some types of media to others.

 What will happen to Utagawashi’s shrine now that its aspect of Inari has died? Will a new aspect replace it?

To make a new aspect for that shrine, they’d need to do a ceremony to imbue the shrine with Inari’s essence. So, pretty much, make a new shintai. I think Utagawashi’s chances of making this happen are pretty high, but if he can’t get it done through official channels he’ll probably just team up with an Inari fox to do it himself.

 Do you know that Paper Cranes is the most kudosed Hikago thing on ao3 aside from esama’s multifandom thing?

I check my stats every single day, anon. I am most definitely aware of that. And it’s glorious. You know my thing has approaching twice as many bookmarks as the next closest competitor, right? Like, dude, it’s amazing. You would not believe how often I sit around preening about my story’s stats. And...well, idk, I might be running out of hikago fic readers who haven’t got to my story yet, but if I can get another 1k kudos by the time the story ends I could get genuine first place there. I’m not bothered if not, but it’s definitely something I think about.

#fic: paper cranes #q&a

[awakeandalive2012]

Changes

I have had this saved in my posts for a long time. It's hard to come out and be vulnerable, but honestly, it's the only thing that is keeping me sane during this tumultuous period of my life. Also I haven't blogged for a bit, so this is just a word dump to help me process everything going on in my life.

I'll admit it: I am the type of person who doesn't easily adjust to change. I won't go into details, but throughout my whole life, it has been hard for me to adjust to life's biggest moments. Going to a jewish pluralistic, co-ed college prep boarding high school, it took me quite a few weeks to properly adjust to my new surroundings and schedule. Going to college, again, took me some time to adjust to being on a big campus and find out who I was. Making the big move back to LA, working in the entertainment industry, and then making the long trek back to the east coast again, took some time. And as I am writing this, I still feel like it was a just a fleeting memory, as if I have to ask "did this really happen?". Changes usually bring new beginnings and exciting things ahead. And yet, some changes don't lead to anything. Years later, and I still sometimes question who I am and where I am going to end up in life.

This year is no exception. There have been plenty of moments that have occurred, where I am still getting adjusted to what has occurred. I am proud of the accomplishments and how I have adjusted to these huge moments. Now I can sit back and properly reflect.

My Wedding

I am married. Married. I never imagined myself to be saying that out loud. Every time I look down at my left hand and see two rings adorning my finger, it sparks a joy that I am married to an amazing man who makes me happy, who makes me laugh, who comforts me in my lowest of lows. Our wedding was beautiful, surrounded by our closet family and friends (super intimate ceremony) and celebrating our love. It was one of the best days of my life. Everything played out perfectly and everyone had a great time. After all those months of planning and having it culminate into one special day was worth it and I would relive it every day if I could. I look back at my photos and watch the videos only to smile because it happened. I wouldn't change it for the world.

But Nicole, what happens after happily ever after? The wedding is only the beginning of an incredible journey that you and your significant other take together. Changing my last name is typically the first step in post-wedding life for any bride. Changing your name itself is riddled with anxiety. I have had a to-do list for post wedding items sitting on my computer and it has been left unread for months. However, because of the pandemic, the SSA is not open so I can't even begin to adjust to the fact that I no longer identify as a "Goldstein". I immediately changed my name via social media but it's not the same satisfaction; albeit, leaving me with a temporary sense of accomplishment. I still have work to do with that, but for now I am happy just to be able to spend the rest of my life with a man I love. I am enjoying every moment from cooking and cleaning together to hanging out on weekends and spending time with the man I love.

My Job

Once upon a time, I graduated from college in 2016, made the big move out to LA and pursued the Hollywood dream. I didn't even make it halfway up the ladder when I decided to move back home (it was more for personal reasons as to why I left, but it's part of it). I knew that I was taking a big risk moving back to a place where the entertainment industry was not as prevalent. Even though I landed a part time job a few short months later, it is not enough for me to be fully satisfied. Let me be clear; I am grateful for my job at the present time, as many people are not so lucky. I was lucky to have gotten unemployment for as long as I did. I am extremely lucky to have a strong loving support system, who have been consistently patient and offer great advice. I am one of the lucky ones.

What I keep thinking about and the thought that keeps me up at night: Why am I not good enough to land a full time job? I have the experience. I have the drive. But nothing. I have seen seas of "thank you for your interest, but we will not be moving on with your application", I barely make the interview stage, and have yet to see an offer from anything. I have applied to jobs I was perfect for, over qualified for, even took a chance on those jobs that were out of my reach or I was under qualified for. I cannot remember a day within these last two years that I did not feel the slightest bit anxious/upset about finding a job.

As of late, I had the thought of potentially going back to school. But that leads me down different thought processes. What am I going to study? I wanted to pursue theatre and I got rejected three times, which does a number on the psyche. I got into the media arts program, graduated, and flew out to pursue a job in my desired industry. After nearly four years, and hardly any progression, with no prospects of moving on up, I left to get a fresh start. Now what? Starting over again? What do I do? What else am I good at? What do I enjoy doing? All of these questions drive me crazy and sometimes, more often than not, to tears. It honestly sucks.

My POV on World Events

There is plenty to discuss here, but the main world issue that I want to highlight is the ongoing global COVID 19 pandemic. Overall thought; this pandemic is far from over and we all have to contribute/work together to end this. Wear a mask (if required in your state/city, etc), wash your hands, stay 6 ft apart, and follow the laws. I was just getting over the hump that is the original COVID-19. I even remember in April 2020 that we were forced into quarantine and our daily lives were forever interrupted. As COVID spread, and the race for the vaccine began, I grew fearful of catching COVID. I did not want to endanger my family, my friends, my loved ones. Worse of all, I didn't want to get sick and die even when I was following all the protocols. When I moved back, I quarantined for two weeks when I got back before I went to Virginia. Over the next year and a half, I wore my mask. I kept my eyes and ears open for new developments and certified research. Finally, when we got vaccinated, I felt a brick lifted off of my shoulders and I could breathe again. Now, in mid 2021, we have another variant to worry about? Come on! I was just getting used to wearing masks everywhere, even considering not wearing a mask again. I have been wearing masks everywhere regardless, I have been furiously washing my hands and sanitizing. Most places around us are mask optional at this point, but I am still worried about getting weird looks from people. I am anxious enough as it is with everything going on in my life, but now I have to bend to the will of complete strangers point of views on me wearing a mask or not. When can we resume our normal life? What is even normalcy anymore? It just makes my head spin trying to keep up and adapt.

All of these big changes that have occurred in my life has challenged me to my very core. It's hard to adjust and sometimes has me broken. However, I stick to my mantra to help me through every day: keep going. So, if you are like me, anxious and feeling ever stressed about life and the changes that come about from it, keep going. Let's walk this trail to the unknown together.

[boomerhunter85]

Mini Dvd For Mac

For most Mac Mini users, they are struggled to find the way to play DVD on Mac Mini, we know Mac Mini doesn’t provide the DVD drive, you can’t play DVD on it directly. But Mac Mini allows you to connect an external DVD drive to it, then you can connect Mac Mini to Mac for playback. A DVD drive must need the DVD drive software, you just buy a DVD drive and connect it to Mac Mini by USB, it’s not enough, if you want to play DVD in Mac with Mac Mini, you also need to set the DVD drive, like the following shows:

Apple USB SuperDrive for Apple MacBook Air/ Pro/Mac Mini (MD564ZM/A) OUT OF STOCK. Type: Slim DVD Burner; Dimensions (H x W x D): 0.67' x 5.47' x 5.47' (H x W x D). 1-16 of 868 results for 'dvd player for mac mini' Amazon's Choice for dvd player for mac mini. SEA TECH 1 Archgon Aluminum External USB DVD+Rw, RW Super Drive for Apple-MacBook Air, Pro, iMac, Mini. 4.2 out of 5 stars 1,336. Get it as soon as Thu, Aug 27. FREE Shipping by Amazon.

1-16 of over 3,000 results for 'mini dvd adapter' INTPW USB C Hub, USB 3.1 Type-C to HDMI Adapter with 4K HDMI, 1080P VGA, USB 3.0, PD Pass-Through Charging, Dual Screens Display for Mac Pro and Other Laptops with Thunderbolt 3 Port Space Grey. 4.2 out of 5 stars 218. 99 $29.99 $29.99. Lowest price in 30 days. Shop for external cd dvd drive for mac at Best Buy. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or in-store pick-up. Apple mac mini dvd burner free download - Express Burn Free CD and DVD Burner for Mac, Apple DVD Player Update, Disc Burner, and many more programs.

Basic Tool: DVD drive | Blu-ray player | Screen Devices

Setting up a DVD drive to Mac Mini

1. On the Mac Mini that has an optical drive, choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.

2. Click the Sharing icon in the System Preferences window.

3. Make sure you’ve entered a name that you can easily recognize in the Computer Name field.

4. Enable the checkbox for DVD or CD Sharing.

5. You can also restrict who has access to your optical drive by selecting 'Ask me before allowing others to use my DVD drive.'

Pros：You just need a DVD drive, you can watch video easily

Cons: If you buy DVD movie with protection, In that case you cannot directly play blu-ray on Mac Mini whether you have a Blu-ray player or not because the disc copyright protection. The best way to watch Blu-ray on Mac is to backup Blu-ray to Mac mini with a blu-ray ripper program.

Best Way to Play DVD on Mac Mini

Want to play any DVD movies on Mac Mini? Yes, you can try ByteCopy for Mac which is an excellent DVD Ripper, whatever you buy the DVD from store or online, this software can remove all the DVD copyright protection. At the same time, you can rip and convert DVD to digital video formats, like: MP4, MOV, AVI, etc. Why? because you can save the video to USB, then insert the USB to Mac Mini for video playback.

Have you got some other ideas? This DVD ripper not only can help you to enjoy DVD on Mac Mini, you can choose any devices for playing DVD, such as: iPad, iPhone, Games console, TV, etc. You don’t need the DVD disc any more, don’t worry about missing DVD movie due to the frail disc any more. This review will help you to know more information about this software.

Key Features you are interested in

Support DVD disc, DVD ISO, IFO image, DVD folder, Blu-ray disc, Blu-ray IFO image, Blu-ray folder

Convert BD/DVD to 200+ Multimedia Devices and Formats, such as: H.264, MP4. AVI, MKV, MOV, etc. Also you can experience the GPU accelaration.

Enjoy 4K video from DVD and Blu-ray with high video quality.

Get 3D Movie Creating Experience from Blu-ray and DVD

Backup BD/DVD without Quality Loss: Backup entire Blu-ray and DVD disc or Save a 100% M2TS/VOB movie without extras

Personalize Movie With Customized Adjustments: Abundant output parameters provided and Powerful video editing feature

Quick Guide: Convert DVD to Mac Mini

Mini Dvd Format

Step 1. Insert your DVD disc to Mac by a DVD drive, run this software, and click File and choose Load files button to import DVD videos directly from your disc. You can also load IFO image to it. This software will detect the DVD main titles automatically. You can choose the desired subtitles language at the bottom, also you can backup Blu-ray with forced subtitles.

Step 2. Click on the main title, then press Format button and choose the video you want, for example: You can choose Multi-track Video > Multi-track MP4 (*.mp4) video, this video formats can keep all the DVD multiple audio tracks and chapter markers. You also can choose other video formats, like: MKV, MOV, AVI video formats as the output video files.

Step 3. After all the choices are done, go back to the main interface and click Convert to start DVD to MP4 video conversion with chapter. Wait for a while, a brand new MP4 video will be finished.

In general, 2 ways are all good, If you DVD is not protected, you can choose way 1 to play DVD on Mac Mini, if your DVD is protected, you must need one DVD Ripper, also above DVD Ripper also can do many tasks for you. Hope you can enjoy DVD movies on Mac Mini happily.

More from my site

“I have several video footages with my family moments taken by my new Mini DV. The question is how can I turn my videos from Mini DV into DVD, so that I can watch them on my big screen TV with the DVD player?”-Lisa

If you have got the same question, you are lucky to find solution in this article. Here I will share some useful tips on how to convert Mini DV to DVD on Mac. To do the conversion, I highly recommend you to use an easy-to-use iSkysoft DVD Creator for Mac (and iSkysoft DVD Creator for Windows version is also available).

This Mini DV to DVD converter supports converting any video format like MTS, AVI, MOV, MPEG, MP4 and more to DVD disc, so you can meet your diversified conversion demands. If you want to make your family video more attractive, you can use its built-in video editing tools to personalize the video by trimming, cropping, or adding effects. To make your own DVD collection, you can apply impressive menu template for your DVD from individual menu list. Just follow below step-by-step guide to start the conversion.

How to turn Mini DV video to DVD disc easily

Step 1: Download and install the converter Click above download link for the program. After you finish downloading the .dmg file, double click the file to open the installation window. Then follow the prompts to set up the converter. After that, drag the program icon to the “Applications” tab to save it on your Mac hard drive.

Step 2: Import Mini DV video to the converter Run the program, and click the “Create a New Project”. Then you will have three options to import Mini DV videos to the program.

1) Click the “+” button to open the folder where you have saved the video and select the file to import to the program.

2) Directly drag and drop the video to the converter, the video file will be loaded immediately.

3) Click the “Media Browser” button to open the built-in browser and find the video you want, then import it to the converter.

Mini Dvd Macbook Pro

Step 3: Edit your Mini DV video (Optional) Click on the video file, you will see an “Edit” button on the right of the video thumbnail. Just click the button to go to the editing interface. To make your family video more eye-catching, you can trim the part you do not want, or add video effects on it.

Step 4: Start the Mini DV to DVD conversion Now click the “Menu” button to show the menu templates, you can double click the menu you like and apply it to your DVD. When everything is OK, insert a blank DVD disc to your Mac and click the “Burn” button to open the dialog for output settings. Then check the “DVD Disc” and click the “Save” button to start the conversion.

Mini Dvd Adapter For Mac

When you’re done, you can enjoy your family moment on DVD player anytime you want. Just take a trial.

[washfox674]

Sabrent Rocket Acronis

Like the other Rocket drives from the Sabrent line, 4 Plus comes bundled with software like Acronis True Image as well as the company’s handy SSD toolbox for easy access to the drive’s health and firmware updates.

The Sabrent 1TB Rocket Q4 Nvme PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 Internal SSD With Heatsink delivers all the advantages of flash disk technology with PCIe Gen4.0 x4 interface. Based on TLC NAND Flash memory, its performance speeds can reach up to 4700 MB/s (read) and 1800 MB/s (write) when using a.

Sabrent Acronis Clone

Sabrent Rocket Acronis Pro

Sabrent Ssd Clone

Beginner

Kommentare: 2

I just bought a Sabrent Rocket NVME 4.0 drive, 2 TB. I want to clone my old NVME drive to it. Acronis wouldn't start, saying it doesn't recognize there's a connected Sabrent drive, so I initialized it and formatted it in windows disk manager.

Hello,

I've attached a pic of it but I've tried connecting a Sabrent Rocket 2TB NVME unit (TLC, PCIe3.0 variant) to my laptop with only one occupied NVME slot via usb 3.1 port. As per the picture the Acronis software they recommend doesn't recognise the Sabrent unit when connected via the enclosure.

I've tried two other methods via OS migration wizard (Minitool Partition Wizard) and Macrium Reflect clone disk but each time they complete and I try swapping out the drives, I get windows 10 boot errors (latest build etc.). I also tried repairing the boot sector via the Macrium tool. I'm a little worried about a couple of large read only partitions that have appeared too.

What is the best/recommended method to get the entire previous drive with all data/sectors/partitions onto the new drive? I didn't have this problem in the past with Samsung drives but have opened a support ticket with Sabrent before jumping to returning the unit to Amazon UK.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice. Funny this one still an issue and NVME still not very mature.

AnhangGrößeSabrent Acronis recognition issue via NVME SSD USB enclosure.jpg26.07 KBSabrent Acronis recognition issue via NVME SSD USB enclosure2.jpg219.62 KB

Legend

Kommentare: 24718

Lynton, welcome to these public User Forums.

See KB 2201: Support for OEM Versions of Acronis Products which applies to all OEM versions of ATI supplied with hardware purchases.

The core issue here is that using an external enclosure makes the Sabrent NVMe drive appear as something else due to the extra hardware it is connected via. This is a known issue when using such adapters.

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The second issue here is that cloning any laptop drive to an external drive will often cause that external drive to be non-bootable when installed inside the laptop, again because the connection method is no longer the same!

Please see KB 56634: Acronis True Image: how to clone a disk - and review the step by step guide given there.

Note: the first section of the above KB document directs laptop users to KB 2931: How to clone a laptop hard drive - and has the following paragraph:

It is recommended to put the new drive in the laptop first, and connect the old drive via USB. Otherwise you will may not be able to boot from the new cloned drive, as Acronis True Image will apply a bootability fix to the new disk and adjust the boot settings of the target drive to boot from USB. If the new disk is inside the laptop, the boot settings will be automatically adjusted to boot from internal disk. As such, hard disk bays cannot be used for target disks. For example, if you have a target hard disk (i.e. the new disk to which you clone, and from which you intend to boot the machine) in a bay, and not physically inside the laptop, the target hard disk will be unbootable after the cloning.

Personally I have not used cloning with my own NVMe SSD's as I have no suitable adapter to connect 2 with and have no systems with 2 slots for this type of drive, therefore I have always used Backup & Recovery to migrate to a new or larger drive.

The steps in outline are as follows:

Create the Acronis Rescue Media (use the Simple option for WinPE)

Test booting your laptop from the rescue media, ensuring you understand how to boot in UEFI mode and can 'see' your current SSD drive and an external backup drive to hold a full disk backup image.

Make a new full Disk backup of the working SSD to an external drive as a one-off backup action.

Shutdown the PC, remove the current SSD and install the new SSD.

Boot from the Acronis Rescue Media with your backup drive connected.

Recover the Backup from step 3. to the new SSD.

Check the Log messages before exiting from the rescue media (all logs are lost on exit) to check all is OK.

If all ok, disconnect the external drive, remove the rescue media and restart the PC normally from the new SSD.

When you have confirmed all is ok with the new SSD, make a new backup again to include any new device drivers installed for the new SSD.

Note: if your new SSD is larger than the original one, then you may find that ATI has not expanded the C: OS partition to use the full new size of the new SSD. If so, then this is quite simple to resolve as below:

First, download a copy of the free MiniTool Partition Wizard software, install this, then use it to move the Windows Recovery partition (that is shown after the C: OS partition) to the end of the available unallocated space.

Next, resize the C: OS partition to use the available unallocated space.

See KB 63226: Acronis True Image 2020: how to create bootable media and KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

KB 63295: Acronis True Image 2020: How to restore your computer with WinPE-based or WinRE-based media

Beginner

Kommentare: 2

Steve, legend indeed and thanks for all of this. I'd seen your other forum posts but the bit about the enclosure not detecting as Sabrent makes sense. I did migrate my original Asus G14 SSD to a Samsung one via these methods however which is why I thought something was different this time with Sabrent.

I'll try some of these methods and get back to you. Something's got to work eventually :)

Beginner

Kommentare: 2

@Steve Smith reporting back:

So good news I have managed to achieve the migration by (eventually) finding the mediacreation tool (exe) in the Acronis win explorer folder and putting the tool on a spare usb drive. I then used the 'simple' option from the ui menu option when booting from the drive (after selecting in BIOS), and this did a very straightforward clone from source (now my 'original' drive connected in the external usb3.1 nvme enclosure) to destination/target Sabrent drive (now in the m.2 pcie slot in my laptop). I then shut down, did the swap. There was a blue screen startup error after this which then seemed to repair but only after I went into advanced startup and applied the 'startup repair' option. A reboot after that miraculously made it all the way through windows10 bootup, no data loss and as I was before but now with double the space via the 2tb nvme Rocket. A bit of a process though and someone not so confident with this stuff might have struggled. A couple of suggestions:

1. The information via a hyperlink or something re media creation tool for using external drives to migrate (rather than the simple error 'not-detected' as per my screenshot here would surely be a better user experience?

2. why not uplift the True Image tool to be able to detect beyond the enclosure's hw signature to recognise the inserted Sabrent drive?

should I mark your message above as 'solution' based on this?

Thanks, Lynton

Legend

Kommentare: 24718

Lynton, good to read of your successful migration.

You can use the Feedback tool to pass on suggestions to Acronis about hyperlinks etc.

With regards to hardware detection, that is only a limitation in the OEM versions which have been 'crippled' to have a requirement to identify a drive of the vendor make - this does not apply to the full commercial version, but that isn't given away for free with hardware purchases!

Acronis Links : Acronis Scheduler Manager : Acronis VSS Doctor : Backup Archive Compatibility : Cleanup Tool (ATIH 2010-2021) : Cloning Disks : Contact Acronis Support : Difference between Backup and Disk Clone

MVP Assistant (Log Viewer) & MVP Custom PE Builder available from Community Tools page. Acronis True Image User Guides available from Product Documentation page. imTranslator for quick translation of language posts.

Note: Please do not expect any instant reply for private messages as I am often unable to access these due to forum timeout errors!

Products: Acronis True Image 9.0 - 11.0, 2009 - 2021 Disk Director 12.5 Acronis Revive

Beginner

Commenti: 2

Hello,

I've attached a pic of it but I've tried connecting a Sabrent Rocket 2TB NVME unit (TLC, PCIe3.0 variant) to my laptop with only one occupied NVME slot via usb 3.1 port. As per the picture the Acronis software they recommend doesn't recognise the Sabrent unit when connected via the enclosure.

I've tried two other methods via OS migration wizard (Minitool Partition Wizard) and Macrium Reflect clone disk but each time they complete and I try swapping out the drives, I get windows 10 boot errors (latest build etc.). I also tried repairing the boot sector via the Macrium tool. I'm a little worried about a couple of large read only partitions that have appeared too.

What is the best/recommended method to get the entire previous drive with all data/sectors/partitions onto the new drive? I didn't have this problem in the past with Samsung drives but have opened a support ticket with Sabrent before jumping to returning the unit to Amazon UK.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice. Funny this one still an issue and NVME still not very mature.

AllegatoDimensioneSabrent Acronis recognition issue via NVME SSD USB enclosure.jpg26.07 KBSabrent Acronis recognition issue via NVME SSD USB enclosure2.jpg219.62 KB

Legend

Commenti: 24718

Lynton, welcome to these public User Forums.

Sabrent Acronis Clone

See KB 2201: Support for OEM Versions of Acronis Products which applies to all OEM versions of ATI supplied with hardware purchases.

The core issue here is that using an external enclosure makes the Sabrent NVMe drive appear as something else due to the extra hardware it is connected via. This is a known issue when using such adapters.

The second issue here is that cloning any laptop drive to an external drive will often cause that external drive to be non-bootable when installed inside the laptop, again because the connection method is no longer the same!

How to reboot a macbook air laptop. Please see KB 56634: Acronis True Image: how to clone a disk - and review the step by step guide given there.

Note: the first section of the above KB document directs laptop users to KB 2931: How to clone a laptop hard drive - and has the following paragraph:

It is recommended to put the new drive in the laptop first, and connect the old drive via USB. Otherwise you will may not be able to boot from the new cloned drive, as Acronis True Image will apply a bootability fix to the new disk and adjust the boot settings of the target drive to boot from USB. If the new disk is inside the laptop, the boot settings will be automatically adjusted to boot from internal disk. As such, hard disk bays cannot be used for target disks. For example, if you have a target hard disk (i.e. the new disk to which you clone, and from which you intend to boot the machine) in a bay, and not physically inside the laptop, the target hard disk will be unbootable after the cloning.

Personally I have not used cloning with my own NVMe SSD's as I have no suitable adapter to connect 2 with and have no systems with 2 slots for this type of drive, therefore I have always used Backup & Recovery to migrate to a new or larger drive.

The steps in outline are as follows:

Create the Acronis Rescue Media (use the Simple option for WinPE)

Test booting your laptop from the rescue media, ensuring you understand how to boot in UEFI mode and can 'see' your current SSD drive and an external backup drive to hold a full disk backup image.

Make a new full Disk backup of the working SSD to an external drive as a one-off backup action.

Shutdown the PC, remove the current SSD and install the new SSD.

Boot from the Acronis Rescue Media with your backup drive connected.

Recover the Backup from step 3. to the new SSD.

Check the Log messages before exiting from the rescue media (all logs are lost on exit) to check all is OK.

If all ok, disconnect the external drive, remove the rescue media and restart the PC normally from the new SSD.

When you have confirmed all is ok with the new SSD, make a new backup again to include any new device drivers installed for the new SSD.

Note: if your new SSD is larger than the original one, then you may find that ATI has not expanded the C: OS partition to use the full new size of the new SSD. If so, then this is quite simple to resolve as below:

First, download a copy of the free MiniTool Partition Wizard software, install this, then use it to move the Windows Recovery partition (that is shown after the C: OS partition) to the end of the available unallocated space.

Next, resize the C: OS partition to use the available unallocated space.

See KB 63226: Acronis True Image 2020: how to create bootable media and KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

KB 63295: Acronis True Image 2020: How to restore your computer with WinPE-based or WinRE-based media

Beginner

Commenti: 2

Steve, legend indeed and thanks for all of this. I'd seen your other forum posts but the bit about the enclosure not detecting as Sabrent makes sense. I did migrate my original Asus G14 SSD to a Samsung one via these methods however which is why I thought something was different this time with Sabrent.

I'll try some of these methods and get back to you. Something's got to work eventually :)

Beginner

Commenti: 2

Sabrent Rocket Acronis Pro

@Steve Smith reporting back:

Sabrent Ssd Clone

So good news I have managed to achieve the migration by (eventually) finding the mediacreation tool (exe) in the Acronis win explorer folder and putting the tool on a spare usb drive. I then used the 'simple' option from the ui menu option when booting from the drive (after selecting in BIOS), and this did a very straightforward clone from source (now my 'original' drive connected in the external usb3.1 nvme enclosure) to destination/target Sabrent drive (now in the m.2 pcie slot in my laptop). I then shut down, did the swap. There was a blue screen startup error after this which then seemed to repair but only after I went into advanced startup and applied the 'startup repair' option. A reboot after that miraculously made it all the way through windows10 bootup, no data loss and as I was before but now with double the space via the 2tb nvme Rocket. A bit of a process though and someone not so confident with this stuff might have struggled. A couple of suggestions:

1. The information via a hyperlink or something re media creation tool for using external drives to migrate (rather than the simple error 'not-detected' as per my screenshot here would surely be a better user experience?

2. why not uplift the True Image tool to be able to detect beyond the enclosure's hw signature to recognise the inserted Sabrent drive?

should I mark your message above as 'solution' based on this?

Thanks, Lynton

Legend

Commenti: 24718

Lynton, good to read of your successful migration.

You can use the Feedback tool to pass on suggestions to Acronis about hyperlinks etc.

With regards to hardware detection, that is only a limitation in the OEM versions which have been 'crippled' to have a requirement to identify a drive of the vendor make - this does not apply to the full commercial version, but that isn't given away for free with hardware purchases!

Acronis Links : Acronis Scheduler Manager : Acronis VSS Doctor : Backup Archive Compatibility : Cleanup Tool (ATIH 2010-2021) : Cloning Disks : Contact Acronis Support : Difference between Backup and Disk Clone

MVP Assistant (Log Viewer) & MVP Custom PE Builder available from Community Tools page. Acronis True Image User Guides available from Product Documentation page. imTranslator for quick translation of language posts.

Note: Please do not expect any instant reply for private messages as I am often unable to access these due to forum timeout errors!

Products: Acronis True Image 9.0 - 11.0, 2009 - 2021 Disk Director 12.5 Acronis Revive

[posterclever974]

X Mplayer2 Download

Freeware

Feb 13, 2014  mplayer2 is a command-line video player that was developed from the initial MPlayer, providing you with the original functions and more, along with various improvements of. Hi, what a long absence, I'm still alive, MPlayerX too. Now I'm planning some, relatively, big feature into MPlayerX for the next major release. It may cost some time. Before doing it, I thought I'd better release once. So actually 1.0.1 isn't a exciting release, just a little step forward. MPlayerX is armed by FFmpeg and MPlayer, which means it could handle any media format in the world without extra plug-ins or codec packages. Dance on your fingers. Pinch, tap or swipe, MPlayerX provides you the easiest way to control the playback. Click to download the Control Script for Sofa. Dec 13, 2018  Download MPlayer. MPlayer is a movie player which runs on many systems. Login Social Sharing. Tech news in your inbox. Get TechSpot's weekly newsletter Facebook.

Windows

46.0 MB

57,533

Aug 28, 2019  Bandwidth Analyzer Pack analyzes hop-by-hop performance on-premise, in hybrid networks, and in the cloud, and can help identify excessive bandwidth utilization or unexpected application traffic. Download a free trial for real-time bandwidth monitoring, alerting, and more. NOTE: The MPlayer App is optimised for iOS 7 or later.Download the MPlayer App free of charge before your next Monarch flight to enjoy our exciting.

It plays most MPEG/VOB, AVI, Ogg/OGM, VIVO, ASF/WMA/WMV, QT/MOV/MP4, RealMedia, Matroska, NUT, NuppelVideo, FLI, YUV4MPEG, FILM, RoQ, PVA files, supported by many native, XAnim, and Win32 DLL codecs. You can watch VideoCD, SVCD, DVD, 3ivx, DivX 3/4/5, WMV and even H.264 movies.

Another great feature of MPlayer is the wide range of supported output drivers. It works with X11, Xv, DGA, OpenGL, SVGAlib, fbdev, AAlib, DirectFB, but you can use GGI, SDL (and this way all their drivers), VESA (on every VESA compatible card, even without X11!) and some low level card-specific drivers (for Matrox, 3Dfx and ATI), too! Most of them support software or hardware scaling, so you can enjoy movies in fullscreen. MPlayer supports displaying through some hardware MPEG decoder boards, such as the Siemens DVB, DXR2 and DXR3/Hollywood+.

MPlayer has an onscreen display (OSD) for status information, nice big antialiased shaded subtitles and visual feedback for keyboard controls. European/ISO 8859-1,2 (Hungarian, English, Czech, etc), Cyrillic and Korean fonts are supported along with 12 subtitle formats (MicroDVD, SubRip, OGM, SubViewer, Sami, VPlayer, RT, SSA, AQTitle, JACOsub, PJS and our own: MPsub). DVD subtitles (SPU streams, VOBsub and Closed Captions) are supported as well.

What's New:

After a long pause, we decided that it might be a good idea to make a new release. While we had our fun with the naming scheme with lots of 'pre' and 'rc' it seemed time to move on and with everyone incrementing major versions between weekly and monthly we hope to be forgiven for jumping ahead to 1.1.

This release is intended to be compatible with the recent FFmpeg 0.11 release. We hope it will be useful to distros and other users relying on FFmpeg 0.11. Everyone else is encouraged to follow Subversion HEAD to always get the latest features and bug fixes. You might still want to read the release announcement to get a short summary of any bigger changes and improvements.

Mplayer For Windows 7

Among the bigger news is that we found a maintainer for the X11 gmplayer GUI, so those holding out on it against our earlier recommendations will get a lot of bug fixes.

There is also support for more subtitle types (Bluray, DVB, DVB closed-caption for example), many improvements to -vo gl including output of 10 bit video, very basic but usable OpenGL ES support and much better SDL support which makes it a usable choice on OSX (particularly on older PowerPC variants much faster than corevideo or quartz). MPlayer will now also try much harder to handle intermittent network failures, for example trying to reconnect.

As part of the code cleanup efforts, the internal libfaad2 copy has been removed since the FFmpeg decoder is working well. Also the internal mp3lib copy is no longer used by default since the many alternatives (FFmpeg, libmpg123, libmad) avoid its recurring issues like incorrect decoding with newer compilers. However it can still be forced at runtime for easier tracking of regressions. Please do not rely on this since it will be removed in the future. If you do not actually need it consider disabling it at compile time with --disable-mp3lib.

As a first for this release, the tarballs are available in two variants: compressed with xz and compressed with gzip. Please get the xz variant if you can to save bandwidth, the gzip version is for everyone that cannot use it. Should you never have encountered xz compressed files, newer versions of tar can uncompress it via 'tar xJf MPlayer-1.1.tar.xz'.

What's New:

Upgraded gcc to 7.3, enabled lto in FFMpeg

Enabled dash demuxer in FFMpeg

Enabled libopenmpt in FFMpeg

Updated gnutls to 3.5.18

Updated libvpx (git)

Updated openh264 (git)

Updated kvazaar (git)

Updated x265 (hg)

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Application/x-mplayer2 Chrome Download

thx

I needed a simple command-ling media player, and this was perfect! Extremely lightweight and very versatile. I use it for some custom clip management and window capture for streamers to use when broadcasting using the OBS Studio streaming/broadcasting software on Twitch. I take chat commands that create a text semaphore/trigger file, and when the script sees the trigger, it uses this Mplayer utility to play. I am just doing this for fun, and to help streamers offer a little something extra. if a streamer wants to rotate 8 different 'Hug' clips when a viewer runs the '!hug @somename' command in chat, there should be a utility that can launch the clips when the commands are run, then rotate the clips so if 4 or 5 people use the 'Hug' command to hug each other, it doesn't just play the same clip over and over. The fact that you can title the player window allows a streamer to have a few different windows captures set up. Maybe 1 for fullscreen clips with a chromakey filter, a regular fullscreen clip fo speciual event clips, and maybe ones for subscriber 'intro clips' they use when they join chat to announce their presence in style. Maybe another for 'accent clips/memes', so users can add commentary by launching clips at proper moments, like a '!rip' command that plays a rotation of funny 'I'm dead' clips when the streamer dies playing a game. The streamer just ads these 3 or 4 window capture sources to each scene they want clips to be available, then the script/utility launches each clip with the appropriate window title to have it play at the right size and location. I'd love to see someone actualy do this properly. I have it all working. I just needed a 'lighter' player that was flexible enough to support all the different clip types. I was using VLC Media Player, but it did noy play smoothly, often hitching/lagging for a split second when launching clips, making it seems rough and 'unfinished'. This gives a smooth and polished feel when playing the clips.

This is awesome. No more need to fire-up some heavy graphical user interface just to listen to audio streams! (Sorry I couldn't do this, due to a complete lack of free time here!) The only thing lacking, instructions how to install mplayer.exe and instructions concerning how to use with Cygwin. Basically, the mplayer.exe goes within your $PATH. I'm not sure where the other sub-folders should reside, but I simply created a symbolic link using Cygwin for my usage here. (ie. See below Cygwin Instructions) Initial execution of mplayer.exe seemed to search all of Windows fonts. Successive exections of mplayer.exe appeared to forgo the font searching, resulting in the usual quick start of the program. For cygwin users: 1) Unpackage the mplayer package to a folder. 2) Start cygwin and make sure you have a local bin folder (ie. /home/user/bin) within your path. If not, create the folder and modify your local $PATH to include your /home/user/bin folder, replacing the 'user' with your user name. 3) Type 'ln -s /place/where/you/unpackaged/mplayer/mplayer.exe /home/user/bin/' 4) If you prefer using .exe' command suffixes or are required to, and you have 'mplayer' aliases within you Linux bashrc and are copying the Linux bashrc over to Windows' Cygwin, then open the bashrc file within vim and type ':%s/mplayer /mplayer.exe /gc' without quotes. The command will aide in replacing the 'mplayer ' with 'mplayer.exe '. Most Cygwin users can skip this as Cygwin seems to recognize commands without the '.exe' suffix!

Nice work ! Version 37051 has not any more WMV bug. Really nice Job ! Don't stop working on mplayer, i use it everyday for a project i'll publish soon... Thanks again ;)

Application X-mplayer2 Downloads

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11 ways to start reversing type 2 diabetes today

by Dr Rangan Chatterjee / November 11, 2015

Whether you have a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes or or you’ve been told you’re at risk, read on for 11 ways to start reversing the effects immediately.

Type 2 diabetes is reaching epidemic proportions. There are 3.9 million people living with diabetes – 90 per cent those of being affected by type 2 diabetes. Here’s another shocking statistic: 1 in 3 UK adults has prediabetes, the condition that precedes diabetes.

As you’ll soon see on BBC One’s Doctor in the House, it is entirely possible to both prevent as well as reverse type 2 diabetes. Unfortunately, a lot of the advice that is given for the condition is, in my opinion, unhelpful and misguided. Most people think of it as a blood sugar problem but this is the ultimate effect rather than the cause.

WHAT IS TYPE 2 DIABETES?

Type 2 diabetes is a condition that is characterised by chronically elevated blood sugar levels. However, the main cause as well as the driver for this condition is something called Insulin Resistance. When you eat certain foods, particularly refined carbohydrates, that food is converted to sugar inside your body. Your body’s way of dealing with this sugar is to produce a hormone called insulin. Insulin moves the sugar inside your cells so that it can be used for energy. Sounds great, right?

Well, yes and no. When working efficiently, this is a fantastic system that helps your body to function well. But when you have type 2 diabetes, prediabetes or significant abdominal obesity, that system does not work so well.

Eating too many refined carbohydrates elevates your insulin levels for long periods of time and your cells start to become resistant to the effects of insulin. Think of this a bit like alcohol. When you start to drink, a single glass of wine can make you feel drunk. Once your body becomes accustomed to drinking, you need more and more alcohol to achieve the same effect. This is what happens in diabetes. You need more and more insulin to do the same thing. The problem is that too much insulin is toxic to the body.

WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF RAISED INSULIN LEVELS?

It causes water and salt retention, which causes raised blood pressure

You become at risk of atherosclerosis (“furring of arteries”), which can lead to heart attacks

Raised insulin levels increases VLDL (very low density lipoprotein), a type of blood fat and one of the “bad” forms of cholesterol

Can drive the growth of certain cancer cells

In women, it can cause the ovaries to produce more testosterone, which is associated with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome

Significantly increases your risk of getting type 2 diabetes

The only way to effectively reverse type 2 diabetes (or even pre-diabetes) is to deal with the underlying cause – Insulin Resistance. Trying to address the blood sugar levels (with medication) without addressing the insulin levels is treating the symptoms, not treating the root cause. It is similar to using a bucket to remove water from an overflowing sink rather than actually turning off the tap!

The most important thing to do is to stop adding fuel to the fire. If Insulin Resistance is driving the condition, you need to firstly stop consuming foods that increase insulin production. Secondly, you need to make some lifestyle changes so that you can become sensitive to insulin once again

SO, WHAT FOODS INCREASE INSULIN PRODUCTION

All carbohydrates – to some degree at least – will raise your blood insulin levels. That is why I consider type 2 diabetes a form of “carbohydrate intolerance”. Protein can also raise levels but to a much lesser degree. The only macronutrient that keeps your insulin levels and, therefore, your blood sugar stable is FAT! Therefore, if you are trying to reduce insulin levels, you need to reduce your amount of certain carbohydrates and replace them instead with healthy, natural fats.

What does that mean in terms of actual FOOD CHOICES though?

When I say healthy, natural fat – think nuts and seeds, avocados, omega 3 fats (found in almonds, flax seed and cold water fish, like wild salmon, herring, mackerel and tuna), extra virgin olive oil and whole eggs.

And when I talk about reducing certain carbohydrates, I mainly mean reducing your intake of refined carbohydrates such as pasta, rice and bread. Non starchy vegetables (such as broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower) are fine and can be eaten in abundance. Many fruits are packed with carbohydrates, so if you’re trying to reduce your carb intake, try and limit your intake to low-carb fruit, such as rhubarb, watermelon, berries, peaches and blackberries.

It is really important to say that I do not believe that there is one perfect diet for everyone. Different people respond to different diets.

However, if you have a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes or if you have been told you are at high risk or if you have significant abdominal obesity, here are 11 ways to start reversing the effects immediately:

Avoid ALL refined carbohydrates. That means no pasta, rice or bread (even wholegrain bread will spike your insulin)

Avoid ALL added sugar. If your body is already in a state where you cannot process carbohydrates and sugars properly, you are going to have to take steps to fully eliminate all sugars, at least in the short term.

Avoid ALL sweet drinks. It is best to stick to water, tea, coffee.

Do not be scared of good quality, healthy, natural fat – avocados, olives, almonds etc. Don’t worry about this causing you to put on weight. A study published in 2003 showed that people who supplemented their diet with almonds lost more weight than those who supplemented with so-called “healthy, complex carbs”

Do not waste your energy counting calories. Concentrate on the quality of the food that you are eating and the calorie control will take care of itself.

FEED YOUR GUT BUGS, not just yourself. There are trillions of bugs that live in your gut – their health is critical in determining your health. Many studiesshow links between the state of your gut bugs (your microbiota) and type 2 diabetes. Start improving the health of your gut immediately by eating five servings of different coloured vegetables each day. The non digestible fibre in vegetables is the preferred food for your gut bacteria and when your gut bugs are happy, you will be happy. The wider the variety of colours, the more phytonutrients you will be getting.

Do my 5 minute kitchen workout once a day. This could be before breakfast, lunch or dinner – whatever works for you.

If you like to snack, keep some high fat healthy snacks with you, such as olives, nuts or hummus. When you snack on refined carbohydrates such as biscuits, you go on a blood sugar rollercoaster that results in you feeling hungry shortly after. Fats, on the other hand, will keep you fuller for longer.

Include high quality protein and fat with EVERY single meal. This helps to stabilise your blood sugars and promotes satiety and fullness, making it less likely that you will want to reach for dessert after your meal.

Eat your meals sitting down at a table. Eating on the sofa while watching TV encourages a mindless form of eating – this can lead you to eat higher quantities than you otherwise would. If you sit at a table and concentrate on what you’re eating, you are more likely to enjoy your food, feel satisfied at the end of your meal and eat less.

Consider a form of regular fasting (more to come in a later blog), such as intermittent fasting or time-restricted feeding (TRF). TRF means eating your calories during a specific window of the day, and choosing not to eat food for the rest. It’s a great way to reduce insulin levels in your body and help undo the effects of chronically elevated levels.

As always, I’m here to answer any questions, so please get in touch via Facebookand Twitter if you’d like to chat.

— Dr Chatterjee

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DISCLAIMER: The content in this blog is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read in this blog or on this website.

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[panticwritten]

Okay, I’m trying to find the motivation to write and maybe I’ll get it if I complain about my maladaptive daydreaming for a spell. I started writing this in my journal and realized that it’s something worth sharing with other MaDDers. I’m gonna apologize right now because this is digging deep and I might come off as snappy or angry. That’s because I am angry. I promise that I’m, like, okay. I just know that I would have killed to see other people dealing with the same shit that I did when I was younger. 

Uhhhhhhh quick trigger warnings because upon reading this over I should probably add these. I got kind of dramatic because I apparently don’t know how to tell personal stories without theatrics and tangents.

Unhealthy coping mechanisms

Direct suicide mention

Direct self harm mention

Have my truths about MaDD.

I use my daydreams to write. I think I post mostly about my positive experiences with it, I don’t know, I don’t remember ever talking actual shit about it so here we go time to drop the real anger and frustration because I’m just realizing why this particular thing makes me so mad.

I think I’ve been giving it a positive spin but that’s. Not the truth. There are so many things that I could bitch about when it comes to maladaptive daydreams to dash out those responses of “oh yeah I also have a great imagination i love daydreaming /stars in eyes/ i got distracted one (1) time during class daydreaming about summer for half an hour” to every ‘relatable’ MaDD post that makes me want to scream.

I love my characters, I love the stories I get to write, I love the exhilaration that comes out of winning a ‘campaign’ (if I can ignore the more negative side effects), I love Connor, and all (most) of the different versions of me. I still love all of those things. It’s like loving cheese and ice cream when you’re lactose intolerant, except you can actually choose to not eat ice cream goddamn it.

I could talk about how daydreaming sometimes leaves me looking up and realizing I’ve been sitting stock still and staring at the same line of a fanfiction for six hours while my roommate tries and fails to converse with me.

How when I’m alone and I start daydream I pace, compulsively clean until I panic because I can’t get anything good enough, type or write until my fingers ache.

How realizing that I’m not the person (people?) I am in my daydreams cuts me because they can do anything, but also makes me sag in relief because they are not the kind of person I would ever inflict on the people I care about in real life.

How I spent half of senior year hiding tears because I was juggling 3+ emotionally draining longterm daydreams in between school and extracurriculars.

How until I started wearing my necklace of keys and a ring, I would look up from the worst of the dreams with sores up and down my forearm because I would scratch it to bleeding without realizing it.

How in sophomore year of high school I swallowed a bottle and a half of antidepressants because my best friend wasn’t real and had abandoned me the previous year.

How I can’t be in the dark by myself, how the idea of being underground closes my throat with panic, how I wish for physical affection but I can’t handle being touched without warning anymore, how I see characters that remind of Count Olaf and my limbic system tells me I’m not safe, how the sound of those dumb horns every Homestuck cosplayer practically nuts over makes me feel physically ill. All because of the bullshit in my daydreams.

But that’s not what I’m furious about today so I’ll save those particular stories for another day.

So. I always end up having daydreams in the universes of media I get obsessed with. There are some things I randomly don’t daydream with but sometimes I like. Look at a thing I read when I was younger and I remember how great a read it was and I’m like “hey I should read that again it was hecking good”

But I know I can’t touch that series with a ten foot pole because if I so much as read a summary suddenly I’ll have another universe I’m invested in.

I’m talking expressly about Gregor the Overlander, but that’s just the surface of the problem.

I inhaled that entire series in 5th grade and that was when I had time to read every second of the goddamn day and didn’t really daydream all that much because like?? I had books why would I need universes in my head.

That changed when I started getting yelled for reading in class once I hit middle school but that’s a whole other thing.

But yeah, I read GtO in 5th grade and loved the shit out of it because it’s a fantastic series. I want more than anything to revisit it, to read it and write dumb fanfiction involving bats and flying and awesome things, but I know that would be a huge mistake.

Gregor the Overlander joins Percy Jackson, Maybird, and so many other series I read when I was a kid that I cannot read. Last time I read Harry Potter, I had a daydream that wrecked me for a while. I started reading Series of Unfortunate Events again and I had to lock the door to that daydream because when I go into that universe I can’t function as a human being because it’s the only daydream that matches (and maybe exceeds) the emotional strain that my Escape From Furnace daydreamshave put me through. I rewatched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and around episode 10 I started daydreaming in that universe too.

I never know anymore what series will get me. Belgariad didn’t do it, and that’s my favorite book series on the planet. I know that neither Warrior Cats or Guardians of Ga’Hool would do it by some weird fucking instinct. Steven Universe didn’t do it, and that series is the exact kind of universe I would have a field day in. Same with Pokemon (except for the CONCEPT of the third movie, I guess).

Gravity Falls nearly made my depression rocket to worse lows than it had been in MONTHS because of the daydream it triggered. Seven Deadly Sins threw me into one, though to a lesser extent. Trollhunters, Be More Chill, Hunger Games, Homestuck, JTHM, Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, so many things, even things I didn’t expect to trip me up.

And that’s not even getting into the massive trigger that is music because I haven’t found a song that doesn’t bring me into a daydream scene in a long time.

It’s like walking on fucking eggshells.

It’s one of the things that makes me really hate my maladaptive daydreaming.

Like, I’m already fucked because when it pulls me in it turns me into a shitty friend, it gets in the way of school, writing, work, and hurts me because so much of what I care about isn’t real. It tricks me into hating myself for being hurt emotionally by the things that happen in the daydreams because obviously it’s not real how could it possibly affect my real life like this.

But I’d accepted all of that as collateral. It doesn’t matter as long as I have something to write about. I track my depression with how much I write so as long as I’m writing I must be fine. I can mitigate the damage and bend my daydreams to work for me when I really need them to. Coping mechanisms and tricking myself into daydreaming that I’m looking into a new target for the Scouts rather than researching for a paper etc. etc.

But I hate this because now I can’t even like things.

Whenever I want to read/watch something new I have to look at it really hard. I have to think, “Is this good enough that I’ll enjoy it, but not so good it’ll throw me into weeks of daydreaming, scratched forearms, blank stares, guilt, dropped grades, hurt feelings, and general exhaustion?”

I’m normally safe with certain genres. Tame rom coms. Most crime novels. Superhero movies/comics.

But then I read something I should be fine with and suddenly I have a daydream in the Fifty Shades universe so I have an excuse to slap Christian Grey in the face and go to benefit functions in an established universe with Connor. I play a game that I don’t know anything about and suddenly I’m daydreaming in the Two Souls Universe because the idea of Connor being a rift ghost tickles my brain in all the right ways I guess. I reread Homestuck because cringe culture is dead and I find a stack of SBURB discs in the Cube and I’m struggling to keep the daydream from moving further than that because I can’t, not when I already messed up winter term so much with my daydreaming. Not when I know that SBURB would mean creating more than one new universe to keep the Cube from being destroyed. Not when I know that SBURB would mean everyone involved would likely die at least once.

But at this point I know I’m just delaying the inevitable. I can distract myself with fanfiction and Grey’s Anatomy for a bit, but it won’t last forever. Everything feels like screaming in my entire body and when I know that the only way to make the screaming quieter is to find something else to write, something else to make my eyes glaze over for six hours while my roommate tries and fails to talk to me, I know I won’t hold out for long.

I love my daydreams.

But maladaptive daydreaming is about the farthest thing from being fun as I can think of. If the prospect of losing 90% of the people I care about didn’t scare the shit out of me, I would take any chance to get rid of them that was offered to me. To be a normal fucking person. As it is, all I can do is keep it from getting worse.

So I don’t read Gregor the Overlander. And I stay angry. And the screaming gets louder. And I don’t write for several weeks, praying the motivation to write will come back to me again.

#madd #actuallymadd #actually madd #tw: suicide #tw: self harm #not writing #I REPEAT THIS IS NOT A PIECE OF WRITING