#but it should now be usable without any major problems

[zerafinacss]

AO3 Site Skin: neos

It's finally here! After working on it for months and almost giving up at times, neos is finally ready for release!

What is neos?

A site skin that gives AO3 a slightly modernized, semi-flat look. It also fixes some bugs and usability issues. The following color schemes are available (and more may follow):

Powder & pink

Dusky dark purple

Tumblr blue (inspired by the low-contrast classic palette)

Preview Images: Desktop

Preview Images: Mobile

Instructions for adding the site skin are here on AO3

[iturnintoabear]

Every DM picks the battles they want to have at their table. Clearly, this one is yours, and this is no doubt you expressing frustration that you've told them this countless times and they're still doing it. You press on into the fray, continuing to have this fight with them and will until the end of time.

I don't understand it, if I can be honest. Especially since Detect Magic is only available to magic casters who have it AND stock it, and Arcana Checks are available to everyone. The way a player may have asked this to avoid wasting everyone's time by not explaining they didn't stock Detect Magic, so they requested to do this instead—and you want to fight about it? Which inevitably leads to an argument with the rest of the table about whether they should be able to request checks (which some of them HAVE TO DO, like Rogues looking for traps), whether Detect Magic should be usable this way, whether there's a better spell on someone else's list that would work better, and on and on. And on some more.

I play barbarians because I like to tank, and there is nothing that pisses me off more at any table than DMs picking fights and having arguments with magic casters. I already have to sit there while each and every one of them takes twice to three times as long as I do on their turn arguing about mechanics. I already do enough sitting there and listening to magic casters navel gaze and argue with each other—patiently and without complaint, because I understand this is what they get out of the game. This is inherent to playing a magic caster, to some extent. The ticky tacky of magic has to be decided via discussion. I have done it as a DM. If there was a way around it, I would've found it by now.

DO NOT SMACK THE HORNETS NEST BECAUSE YOU WANT TO POWER TRIP. AT THAT POINT, I'M NOT GOING TO BE MAD AT THE PLAYERS—I'M GOING TO BE MAD AT YOU BECAUSE YOU STARTED IT.

But if you're going to pick a flight, don't lose. Right? That's what we learn from every other sphere of our lives? If you give up, it means you lost and people don't respect you. It means you can never let this go, even if you don't care anymore, even when it means everyone loses.

I don't have it in me to do this as a DM. Some of you need to spend more time with new players, children learning to play, and problem players. I had a problem player who was both new and a child, who I didn't cut because they were a child, for the longest time. He ended up having to quit because of his grades at school, and this was after multiple discussions with the other players about whether the time had finally come. He interrupted me when I was talking. He interrupted other players. He had no sense of timing and would argue with the other players about how to pay their characters better. He argued with me constantly. I gave him every chance to learn better and do better because I didn't want to hand him off as a problem player to another table. I wanted to take the time to teach him better because the world is a mean place. I tried to help him, even when it became obvious that he wasn't going to change. And he didn't appreciate what I was offering to him the vast majority of the time.

When you have that experience as a DM, these stupid, petty arguments become obvious for what they are. You don't have the time or energy for kicking hornets nests. You master the art of becoming unbotherable by anything your players do. You realize you can give your players the freedom to manage themselves and to be reasonable, not to take things too far or break the game, if you just get out of their way. Trust your players. Let them tell the story they want to tell. Let them choose the ways they want to pass/fail in their Choose Your Own Adventure. If they roll a 1 on a skill they're supposed to be good at, which will happen from time to time, it's that much funnier. Let the dice provide the consequences so it doesn't have to be you.

From one DM to another: it's not going to kill you, and your problems could be so much worse.

No, you can't "do an Arcana check" to see if there's magic around. There's an actual way in the rules to see if magic is afoot, it's called the detect magic spell.

Also, ask me if you can do any kind of check again and I will bite your head off in real life.

[sp987654321]

Boost Your MacBook’s Performance with the Right Repair & Maintenance

MacBooks are designed well, known for their premium build quality, speed, and reliability. But as with any device over time, performance, battery life, and usability may slow down or have issues on your MacBook. This could be due to your battery draining too much, overheating issues, or some apps lagging, etc. So whatever the case, it’s important to prevent these faults from becoming more serious. You can get your device repaired at that stage or have regular maintenance done. Having serving or repair done can not only fix issues but also increase your MacBook's overall well-being and performance.

This blog will discuss how proper repair service can have your macbook running like it did when you purchased it. We will provide you ways of getting repair support, trusted companies in Bangalore.

Why MacBook Performance Declines Over Time

MacBooks are sturdy, but it's entirely normal for a MacBook's performance to slow down after a few years of use. Here are a few of the more common explanations for this slowdown:

Old Battery: If your MacBook battery has trouble holding a charge, this could affect the overall performance of your MacBook.

Outdated Software: If you refuse to update macOS on a regular basis, your performance is going to suffer every single time.

Storage Problems: If your SSD is full, or almost full, this will create lag.

Background Processes: Some apps may be running without your knowledge in the background, consuming available resources.

Dust Performance: Years of dust can accumulate on the inside of the unit, causing the MacBook to overheat.

Ignoring the above can lead to more significant damage. That's why we prefer to recommend MacBook repair services in Bangalore that are handled by certified professionals all the time.

MacBook Repairs That Improve Performance

Battery Replacement: Getting a new battery ideally improves usage time and speed.

SSD Replace or Clean up: Replacing an SSD or cleaning up space will improve boot time and speed when using apps.

macOS Reinstall: Reinstalling macOS will clean up bugs, poor performance and software glitches.

Fan Clean and Replace Thermal Paste: to help reduce overheating and improve performance.

RAM Upgrade: For older MacBooks, adding RAM can significantly improve performance when multi-tasking.

If your MacBook is slowing down, looking into some repairs will likely refer it to its prior performance levels

Regular Maintenance Hacks for MacBook Users

Even if you do not have any major repairs, taking care of your book can really help.

Always make sure macOS and your applications are up to date.

Remove unused files and applications.

Shut off your MacBook every now and then to clear minor temporary memory.

Do not always charge your MacBook to 100%—battery health is important

Pack your MacBook away and use a keyboard cover to prevent dust.

But if you are still experiencing issues, you will need to take your device to a certified professional who can provide MacBook service in Bangalore.

Where to Get Reliable MacBook Repairs in Bangalore

If you want to take care of your Apple device, you will soon find out that not all service centers are created equal. So you will have to figure out a reputable place with qualified technicians and genuine parts.

iConnect Care Technology based in Bangalore is one of those reputable names. They provide expert MacBook repairs including screen replacement, keyboard issue, battery replacement, and software issue. They have reasonable pricing, clear quoted services, and quality service so if you are looking for a MacBook service center you can trust, then you should consider iConnect Care Technology.

Their highly skilled technicians perform all types of repairs from small fixes to complex logic board repairs, and they only use genuine parts and proper equipment. So, if you are having trouble with your MacBook, then trust in iConnect Care to have you back up and running.

Final thoughts

Your MacBook is an asset—treat it accordingly. Regular maintenance, timely repairs, and using quality professionals can ensure reliable performance and smooth operation into the future.  

Whether you are experiencing battery issues, slow operation, or software errors, don't let it get worse! Find a qualified MacBook repair in Bangalore to ensure your device remains at a high standard. With iConnect Care Technology available locally in Bangalore, you do not need to search far and wide for dependable MacBook service in Bangalore.

[infomagine]

Mobile Application Development Services: What to Look For in 2025

In today’s digital-first world, mobile applications have become the backbone of customer interaction and business scalability. With more than 6 billion smartphone users globally and the growing reliance on mobile apps for everything from shopping to banking, businesses can no longer afford to overlook the potential of mobile applications. As we head into 2025, the landscape of mobile app development continues to evolve rapidly, driven by new technologies, changing user expectations, and increasing competition. Choosing the right development service is more critical than ever.

So, what exactly should businesses look for in mobile application development services in 2025? Let’s dive into the trends, features, and factors that can help you make the right decision for your mobile app strategy.

1. A User-First, Design-Led Approach

The first and perhaps most vital aspect of any app is the user experience (UX). Users today demand fast, intuitive, and visually appealing applications that solve their problems efficiently. A development service must focus on a design-led approach that prioritizes simplicity, user flow, and accessibility.

Look for teams that start with wireframes, conduct usability testing, and iterate based on user feedback. Developers and designers should work hand-in-hand to ensure the app not only functions smoothly but also delights users from the first tap.

2. Cross-Platform Capability

In 2025, it’s no longer sufficient to build an app just for iOS or Android. Cross-platform development is becoming the standard, thanks to frameworks like Flutter, React Native, and Xamarin. Businesses are seeking maximum reach with minimum development costs—and cross-platform tools make that possible.

The best mobile application development services will offer cross-platform expertise to help you reach users on every major device without compromising performance or user experience. Be sure to ask whether the service you’re considering has hands-on experience with these frameworks and can optimize apps for both ecosystems.

3. Integration of Emerging Technologies

AI, AR, VR, blockchain, and IoT are no longer buzzwords—they are integral to the next generation of mobile applications. Whether you’re creating a retail app with AI-driven recommendations or a fitness tracker powered by IoT sensors, your development partner must be able to integrate these technologies seamlessly.

In 2025, users expect apps to be smarter and more responsive. Features like voice commands, facial recognition, machine learning personalization, and even augmented reality experiences are becoming common. Choose a service provider that stays ahead of the curve and has proven experience with these cutting-edge capabilities.

4. Security and Data Privacy

As cyber threats grow more sophisticated, app security is not just a technical necessity—it’s a business imperative. With regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and others, data protection is a must-have in mobile app development.

Your chosen partner should implement secure coding practices, regular penetration testing, encryption protocols, and compliance standards. Ask about their approach to user authentication, data storage, and incident response planning. Remember, one security breach can destroy user trust and tarnish your brand.

5. Agile Development and Transparent Communication

Gone are the days of rigid, waterfall-style development. Agile methodologies are now the industry standard, allowing teams to deliver apps in stages, gather feedback, and improve continuously.

Look for a development team that embraces Agile or Scrum, offers regular sprint reviews, and maintains clear, open communication throughout the project lifecycle. This approach ensures your app is delivered on time, within budget, and aligned with your business goals.

6. Post-Launch Support and Scalability

Launching an app is just the beginning. Ongoing maintenance, updates, bug fixes, and performance monitoring are essential for long-term success. Choose a provider that offers post-launch support and is committed to scaling your app as your user base grows.

Ask about their monitoring tools, analytics integrations, and update cycles. A good development service won’t just deliver a great product—they’ll help you manage it, improve it, and grow it over time.

7. Proven Track Record and Portfolio

Experience matters. When evaluating potential development partners, review their portfolio to see what kinds of apps they’ve built, which industries they’ve served, and what results they’ve delivered.

Client testimonials, case studies, and app store ratings can offer insights into the quality of their work. A proven track record shows they can handle complex challenges, meet deadlines, and deliver on promises.

Conclusion

Choosing the right partner for your app is a crucial business decision, especially as mobile continues to dominate the digital space in 2025. The ideal development partner will offer more than just coding skills—they will bring strategic thinking, creative design, technical excellence, and a deep understanding of user behavior.

If you're planning to build or upgrade your app this year, make sure your chosen mobile application development company checks all the boxes above. With the right team by your side, you can build an app that not only meets today’s standards but also adapts to the future of mobile innovation.

[itsappleexpert]

Top-Quality MacBook Battery Replacement Near You

When your MacBook’s battery starts to show signs of wear and tear, it can be a major inconvenience. Whether it’s draining faster than usual, failing to hold a charge, or shutting down unexpectedly, a damaged or aging battery can hinder your productivity. Fortunately, top-quality MacBook battery replacement services are available near you to solve these problems quickly and effectively.

At Apple Expert, we specialize in MacBook battery replacement, offering premium-quality services that ensure your device works like new. In this article, we’ll explore why you should choose high-quality MacBook battery replacement, what to expect from the service, and why Apple Expert is the go-to destination for battery replacement near you.

Why Choose Top-Quality MacBook Battery Replacement?

The battery is one of the most important components of your MacBook. It directly impacts the performance, longevity, and usability of your device. When your battery begins to fail, the issues can range from slow charging to complete power failure. Here’s why choosing top-quality battery replacement is crucial:

⚡ 1. Long-Lasting Performance

By opting for a high-quality battery replacement, you ensure that your MacBook can last for years without needing another replacement. Genuine or high-quality replacement batteries are designed to offer long-lasting performance, providing hours of reliable use on a single charge.

⚡ 2. Avoid Potential Damage

A failing battery can sometimes lead to overheating, swelling, or even damage to other internal components. A premium-quality replacement battery will ensure the safety of your device by providing a more stable and efficient power source.

⚡ 3. Enhanced Efficiency

Replacing your old battery with a high-quality one can significantly improve your MacBook’s charging speed and battery life. Whether you’re working, watching videos, or using high-performance applications, a fresh battery will allow your MacBook to handle the workload more efficiently.

⚡ 4. Compatibility

Top-quality battery replacements are fully compatible with your MacBook model. Whether you have a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or the latest M1/M2 models, a professional service will provide you with a battery that matches your specific device’s needs.

Signs You Need a MacBook Battery Replacement

If you notice any of the following signs, it’s time to consider getting a top-quality MacBook battery replacement:

⚡ 1. Decreased Battery Life

If your MacBook used to last all day on a single charge but now barely lasts a few hours, this is a clear sign of battery degradation. As batteries age, they lose their ability to hold a charge, leading to shorter battery life.

⚡ 2. Unexpected Shutdowns

If your MacBook shuts down unexpectedly, even though the battery appears to be sufficiently charged, it indicates that the battery can no longer supply consistent power. A battery replacement will prevent these random shutdowns.

⚡ 3. Slow Charging

If your MacBook takes longer than usual to charge or doesn’t charge at all, your battery might be faulty. A new, high-quality battery will restore your MacBook’s ability to charge quickly and effectively.

⚡ 4. Battery Health Warning

Apple devices have a built-in tool to monitor battery health. If the battery health status shows “Service Battery” or “Replace Soon,” it’s time for a replacement. Ignoring these warnings could lead to further complications.

⚡ 5. Swelling or Leaking

A swollen battery is a serious issue that requires immediate attention. A swollen battery can cause damage to the MacBook’s internal components and can even be dangerous. If you notice any swelling or leaks, it's crucial to replace the battery immediately.

The Process of Getting a Top-Quality MacBook Battery Replacement Near You

When you choose Apple Expert for your MacBook battery replacement, you’re choosing a fast, reliable, and professional service. Here’s what you can expect from the process:

Step 1: Diagnostic Check

Before replacing the battery, our certified technicians will perform a diagnostic check to assess the overall health of your MacBook. This helps us determine the exact issue and confirm if a battery replacement is necessary.

Step 2: Quality Battery Replacement

Once the diagnostics are complete, we’ll proceed with replacing the battery. At Apple Expert, we use only genuine or high-quality replacement batteries that are designed for your specific MacBook model, ensuring optimal compatibility and performance.

Step 3: Calibration and Testing

After installing the new battery, we’ll calibrate it to ensure accurate readings and optimal performance. We’ll also conduct a testing phase to verify that the new battery is functioning correctly.

Step 4: Final Inspection

Once everything is set, we’ll perform a final inspection to ensure that your MacBook is operating at peak performance. You’ll receive your device back in excellent condition, fully ready to handle whatever tasks you need.

Why Choose Apple Expert for Your MacBook Battery Replacement?

There are many reasons why Apple Expert stands out as the top choice for MacBook battery replacement near you:

Professional Technicians

Our certified technicians are highly trained and experienced in working with all MacBook models, ensuring a professional and accurate battery replacement every time.

Fast Turnaround

We know you need your MacBook back quickly. That’s why we offer same-day battery replacement services, usually completing the process in as little as 30-90 minutes, depending on the model.

High-Quality Batteries

We only use genuine or high-quality replacement batteries that are compatible with your specific MacBook model, ensuring long-lasting performance and reliability.

Affordable Pricing

At Apple Expert, we offer competitive and transparent pricing with no hidden fees. You’ll always know the cost upfront, making our services accessible without breaking the bank.

Convenience

Whether you prefer to drop off your MacBook or want on-site repairs, we offer convenient options that work for your schedule. Apple Expert is always here to make the process as easy as possible for you.

Customer Satisfaction Guarantee

Your satisfaction is our priority. We stand behind our services with a customer satisfaction guarantee, ensuring that if you're not fully happy with the replacement, we’ll make it right.

Pricing for MacBook Battery Replacement

We understand that pricing is an important factor in choosing a battery replacement service. At Apple Expert, we offer affordable pricing for our MacBook battery replacement services:

MacBook Battery Replacement Price Range: MacBook Air & Older MacBook Pro Models – $100 - $150 MacBook Pro Retina Models – $150 - $250 MacBook Pro M1/M2 Models – $200 - $300

Our pricing is affordable compared to purchasing a new MacBook, making it a smart and cost-effective choice for those looking to restore their device’s performance.

FAQs – Top-Quality MacBook Battery Replacement Near You

1. How do I know if my MacBook needs a new battery?

If your MacBook battery is draining quickly, shutting down unexpectedly, charging slowly, or showing a battery health warning, it’s time for a replacement.

2. How long does a MacBook battery replacement take?

Battery replacements typically take between 30-90 minutes, depending on the model and condition of your MacBook.

3. Is a new battery compatible with my MacBook?

Yes, we only use genuine or high-quality replacement batteries that are designed to be compatible with your specific MacBook model.

4. Will a new battery improve my MacBook’s performance?

Yes, replacing an old or faulty battery will restore your MacBook’s battery life, prevent random shutdowns, and ensure more consistent performance.

[profile-234]

Why Regular Maintenance is Crucial for Your Paved Surfaces

Paved surfaces, whether driveways, walkways, patios, or parking lots, are vital elements of any property. They enhance curb appeal, provide safe walking or driving areas, and add significant value to your home or business. However, like everything else, paved surfaces aren’t immune to the effects of time and weather. Regular maintenance is crucial to keep them looking great and functioning properly. Let’s dive into why taking care of your paved surfaces should be a top priority, and why Paver Pros in Laconia, NH, is your best partner for the job.

Protect Your Investment

Paving isn’t cheap—it’s an investment. Whether you opted for elegant brick pavers, sturdy asphalt, or sleek concrete, you’ve likely spent a good chunk of change making your property look its best. Regular maintenance ensures your investment doesn’t go to waste. Cracks, stains, and weeds can quickly turn your beautiful surface into an eyesore if left unchecked. By keeping up with maintenance, you’ll save money in the long run by avoiding costly repairs or full replacements.

Prevent Structural Damage

New England weather can be brutal on paved surfaces. The freeze-thaw cycle in winter can cause cracks and potholes, while summer heat can weaken the material. Over time, these small imperfections can grow into major structural issues, compromising the safety and usability of your paved areas. Regular maintenance, like filling cracks, sealing surfaces, and cleaning debris, prevents these minor problems from escalating into significant damage.

Enhance Safety

Cracked or uneven pavement isn’t just unsightly—it’s also dangerous. Loose bricks, potholes, or slippery algae growth can lead to trips, falls, and other accidents. Regular maintenance ensures your paved surfaces are safe for everyone, whether it’s your family, customers, or visitors.

Boost Curb Appeal

Your paved surfaces are one of the first things people notice about your property. A well-maintained driveway or patio creates a positive first impression and shows that you take pride in your home or business. Regular cleaning, weed removal, and sealing can help your paved surfaces stay fresh, clean, and inviting year-round.

Extend the Lifespan of Your Surfaces

Paved surfaces aren’t meant to last forever, but with proper care, you can significantly extend their lifespan. Routine sealing, for example, protects the surface from water, oil, and UV damage, while periodic cleaning removes dirt and grime that can cause deterioration over time. By staying proactive with maintenance, you can keep your surfaces looking great for years to come.

Save Money in the Long Run

Let’s face it—neglecting your paved surfaces can be costly. Small cracks can quickly become larger, leading to more expensive repairs. Potholes and sinking areas may require full sections to be replaced. Regular maintenance helps you catch these issues early, saving you from shelling out big bucks down the line. Think of it as a little effort now for significant savings later.

Why Choose Paver Pros in Laconia, NH?

When it comes to maintaining your paved surfaces, you don’t want to trust just anyone. That’s where Paver Pros in Laconia, NH, comes in. Our team specializes in keeping paved surfaces in top condition, offering services like cleaning, sealing, crack filling, and more.

Here’s why we’re the best choice:

Expertise: With years of experience, we know exactly what your surfaces need to stay in excellent shape.

Custom Solutions: We tailor our maintenance plans to fit your unique needs, whether it’s a small patio or a sprawling parking lot.

High-Quality Materials: We use only the best products and equipment to ensure long-lasting results.

Affordable Pricing: Regular maintenance doesn’t have to break the bank. We offer competitive rates without compromising on quality.

Local Commitment: As a Laconia-based company, we’re dedicated to serving our community and helping our neighbors keep their properties beautiful.

Get Started Today

Don’t wait until your paved surfaces are in rough shape. Regular maintenance is the key to protecting your investment, enhancing safety, and boosting curb appeal. Whether you need routine cleaning, crack repairs, or sealing services, Paver Pros has got you covered.

Contact us today to schedule a consultation and let us help you keep your paved surfaces in tip-top shape. With Paver Pros by your side, you can rest easy knowing your property is in good hands.

[govindhtech]

SQL Pipe Syntax, Now Available In BigQuery And Cloud Logging

The revolutionary SQL pipe syntax is now accessible in Cloud Logging and BigQuery.

SQL has emerged as the industry standard language for database development. Its well-known syntax and established community have made data access genuinely accessible to everyone. However, SQL isn’t flawless, let’s face it. Several problems with SQL’s syntax make it more difficult to read and write:

Rigid structure: Subqueries or other intricate patterns are needed to accomplish anything else, and a query must adhere to a specific order (SELECT … FROM … WHERE … GROUP BY).

Awkward inside-out data flow: FROM clauses included in subqueries or common table expressions (CTE) are the first step in a query, after which logic is built outward.

Verbose, repetitive syntax: Are you sick of seeing the same columns in every subquery and repeatedly in SELECT, GROUP BY, and ORDER BY?

For novice users, these problems may make SQL more challenging. Reading or writing SQL requires more effort than should be required, even for experienced users. Everyone would benefit from a more practical syntax.

Numerous alternative languages and APIs have been put forth over time, some of which have shown considerable promise in specific applications. Many of these, such as Python DataFrames and Apache Beam, leverage piped data flow, which facilitates the creation of arbitrary queries. Compared to SQL, many users find this syntax to be more understandable and practical.

Presenting SQL pipe syntax

Google Cloud is to simplify and improve the usability of data analysis. It is therefore excited to provide pipe syntax, a ground-breaking invention that enhances SQL in BigQuery and Cloud Logging with the beauty of piped data flow.

Pipe syntax: what is it?

In summary, pipe syntax is an addition to normal SQL syntax that increases the flexibility, conciseness, and simplicity of SQL. Although it permits applying operators in any sequence and in any number of times, it provides the same underlying operators as normal SQL, with the same semantics and essentially the same syntax.

How it operates:

FROM can be used to begin a query.

The |> pipe sign is used to write operators in a consecutive fashion.

Every operator creates an output table after consuming its input table.

Standard SQL syntax is used by the majority of pipe operators:

LIMIT, ORDER BY, JOIN, WHERE, SELECT, and so forth.

It is possible to blend standard and pipe syntax at will, even in the same query.

Impact in the real world at HSBC

After experimenting with a preliminary version in BigQuery and seeing remarkable benefits, the multinational financial behemoth HSBC has already adopted pipe syntax. They observed notable gains in code readability and productivity, particularly when working with sizable JSON collections.

Benefits of integrating SQL pipe syntax

SQL developers benefit from the addition of pipe syntax in several ways. Here are several examples:

Simple to understand

It can be difficult to learn and accept new languages, especially in large organizations where it is preferable for everyone to utilize the same tools and languages. Pipe syntax is a new feature of the already-existing SQL language, not a new language. Because pipe syntax uses many of the same operators and largely uses the same syntax, it is relatively easy for users who are already familiar with SQL to learn.

Learning pipe syntax initially is simpler for users who are new to SQL. They can utilize those operators to express their intended queries directly, avoiding some of the complexities and workarounds needed when writing queries in normal SQL, but they still need to master the operators and some semantics (such as inner and outer joins).

Simple to gradually implement without requiring migrations

As everyone knows, switching to a new language or system may be costly, time-consuming, and prone to mistakes. You don’t need to migrate anything in order to begin using pipe syntax because it is a part of GoogleSQL. All current queries still function, and the new syntax can be used sparingly where it is useful. Existing SQL code is completely compatible with any new SQL. For instance, standard views defined in standard syntax can be called by queries using pipe syntax, and vice versa. Any current SQL does not become outdated or unusable when pipe syntax is used in new SQL code.

No impact on cost or performance

Without any additional layers (such translation proxies), which might increase latency, cost, or reliability issues and make debugging or tweaking more challenging, pipe syntax functions on well-known platforms like BigQuery.

Additionally, there is no extra charge. SQL’s declarative semantics still apply to queries utilizing pipe syntax, therefore the SQL query optimizer will still reorganize the query to run more quickly. Stated otherwise, the performance of queries written in standard or pipe syntax is usually identical.

For what purposes can pipe syntax be used?

Pipe syntax enables you to construct SQL queries that are easier to understand, more effective, and easier to maintain, whether you’re examining data, establishing data pipelines, making dashboards, or examining logs. Additionally, you may use pipe syntax anytime you create queries because it supports the majority of typical SQL operators. A few apps to get you started are as follows:

Debugging queries and ad hoc analysis

When conducting data exploration, you usually begin by examining a table’s rows (beginning with a FROM clause) to determine what is there. After that, you apply filters, aggregations, joins, ordering, and other operations. Because you can begin with a FROM clause and work your way up from there, pipe syntax makes this type of research really simple. You can view the current results at each stage, add a pipe operator, and then rerun the query to view the updated results.

Debugging queries is another benefit of using pipe syntax. It is possible to highlight a query prefix and execute it, displaying the intermediate result up to that point. This is a good feature of queries in pipe syntax: every query prefix up to a pipe symbol is also a legitimate query.

Lifecycle of data engineering

Data processing and transformation become increasingly difficult and time-consuming as data volume increases. Building, modifying, and maintaining a data pipeline typically requires a significant technical effort in contexts with a lot of data. Pipe syntax simplifies data engineering with its more user-friendly syntax and linear query structure. Bid farewell to the CTEs and highly nested queries that tend to appear whenever standard SQL is used. This latest version of GoogleSQL simplifies the process of building and managing data pipelines by reimagining how to parse, extract, and convert data.

Using plain language and LLMs with SQL

For the same reasons that SQL can be difficult for people to read and write, research indicates that it can also be difficult for large language models (LLMs) to comprehend or produce. Pipe syntax, on the other hand, divides inquiries into separate phases that closely match the intended logical data flow. A desired data flow may be expressed more easily by the LLM using pipe syntax, and the generated queries can be made more simpler and easier for humans to understand. This also makes it much easier for humans to validate the created queries.

Because it’s much simpler to comprehend what’s happening and what’s feasible, pipe syntax also enables improved code assistants and auto-completion. Additionally, it allows for suggestions for local modifications to a single pipe operator rather than global edits to an entire query. More natural language-based operators in a query and more intelligent AI-generated code suggestions are excellent ways to increase user productivity.

Discover the potential of pipe syntax right now

Because SQL is so effective, it has been the worldwide language of data for 50 years. When it comes to expressing queries as declarative combinations of relational operators, SQL excels in many things.

However, that does not preclude SQL from being improved. By resolving SQL’s primary usability issues and opening up new possibilities for interacting with and expanding SQL, pipe syntax propels SQL into the future. This has nothing to do with creating a new language or replacing SQL. Although SQL with pipe syntax is still SQL, it is a better version of the language that is more expressive, versatile, and easy to use.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

[sassysuitdonut]

How to Perform an SEO Audit

What is an SEO Audit? You might have confused the words SEO, and auditing. SEO audits examine your website in-depth to assess a number of elements that affect how well you do in SERPs, or search engine results pages. The elements include in your web page such as off-page, on-page, and technical SEO.

Conducting an SEO audit is the essential starting point of any website to examine and analyze the spams, problems, and everything on your business. To make sure a website’s usability both internally and externally, it’s critical to assess its general health. The sitemap, anchor text, and social networking platforms should all be the subject of an internal examination. Performing an SEO audit will also reveal warning signs that you need to address.

eWoke is the best SEO Company in Kochi,  to help you to boost your website rank.

While doing SEO Audit, you must consider some crucial points such as off-page, on-page and technical SEO.

Here are some of the areas that SEO audit will cover:

Keyword Usage : Keywords are the important factor, an audit will help you figure out how well you used the keywords on your website, is that optimized or not, and it would bring the optimum traffic on your website, and all. From that results you can add more keywords and can optimize based on that.

Checking Backlinks : Based on the level of the websites that link to yours, search engines can assess the worth of your website and how valuable it is to users. Driving targeted traffic to your website can generate qualified leads for your company, which can eventually lead to actual purchases. You should also be familiar with your backlink checkups and your competitors’ backlink profiles as part of the SEO audit.

Sitemaps : Sitemaps is the another important factor, HTML and XML sitemaps are two types of sitemaps you should have. Every page on your website is linked to by an HTML sitemap, which can be used by visitors and web crawlers to locate pages that may not have internal links going to them. This is the overall structure of a website mainly.

Page Speed : Checking your page speed in mobile and desktop is the best part because no one will stay your website if your website speed extends greater than 3 seconds. If your website is slow, visitors will go to one of those faster sites, which will raise your bounce rate and lower your search engine rating. During your SEO audit, you can examine your page performance using Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool, which will show you how quickly your website loads on desktop and mobile devices and provide advice for resolving any issues.

Mobile – Friendliness : Checking your website mobile friendliness is the important factor, the majority of consumers now access websites and their content via mobile devices, Google now prioritises mobile-first when crawling and indexing new websites. The text may not be readable if someone views your website on a phone since portions will be cut off, so checking and clearing that error is really essential.

Site Security : Site security is the important factor, and Google will confirm is your site is secure or not. You may have noticed that a notification with the words “secure” or “not secure” is displayed at the top of a browser, right next to the URL. Anyone who enters their information on your website runs the danger of having it stolen if it isn’t secure. The data on this website is encrypted and protected.

The above mentioned are some factors we can analyze while doing an SEO audit.

SEO is an inevitable part to boost your website ranking, without improving your SEO ranking you can’t drive traffic on your website. For more SEO services for your business get in touch with us on +919072382964.

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[pixeldashblog]

Sonos Move 2 Review: A beloved speaker becomes a great one

Ok I get it now. 

The original Sonos Move never caught my eye. Why would I spend $400 on a portable version of a Sonos One, an “ok but not amazing” speaker? That speaker has its fans however, and has been praised for its versatility over the rest of Sonos’ lineup despite its limitations on battery life and connectivity.

With the Move 2, a $450 successor, Sonos is hoping to make more people convert to the original speaker’s philosophy. The new speaker is now capable of true stereo playback like the Era 100, plus it integrates the more modern approach to Bluetooth connectivity introduced with the Sonos Roam. Add on 24-hour battery life (more than double the Sonos Move’s), plus USB-C connectivity and design tweaks to catch up with Sonos’ Era speakers, and the Move 2 comes out to be one of the best rounded standalone speakers I’ve ever tested. It’s not a perfect product, but it is a nearly perfect execution of the original Move’s mission.

The Ideal Use Case

I’ll start by saying what the Move 2 isn’t, and why this assumption is what kept me away from its predecessor. The Move 2 is not intended to sit places you would otherwise use an Era 100. The two speakers do offer very comparable audio experiences, and they’re both able to be used as Alexa smart speakers if you need, but the Move 2 is also larger and more expensive than the Era 100. If you want to grab multiple speakers for each room, the Era 100 is still the way to go. 

I found the Move 2 best suited for the places you listen to music often but not always, or somewhere you’d appreciate good music but may not have the space to squat an always plugged-in speaker. It’s a complimentary speaker to a growing Sonos system. 

In my case, I kept the Move 2 on its charging dock in our kitchen for the majority of my testing, and would often take it by its integrated interior grip to the bathroom for podcast-listening in the shower. This wasn’t so much to evaluate critical listening as it was to test the versatility so many Move fans raved about. I found the Move 2 to be much more enjoyable to use here compared to my Sonos Roam, mainly because the Move 2 is always on and the Roam rarely is unless you leave it plugged in to a USB-C cable or buy Sonos’ $50 magnetic wireless charging pad (the Roam works with any Qi pad but it’s not as elegant). This makes connecting to the Move 2 a quicker, more seamless process than the Roam, which takes about a minute to wake up. I also have occasional connectivity issues with the Roam that are absent with the Move 2.

Hardware Changes

My biggest gripe with the Move 2’s hardware is its charging solution. The charging base itself is fine, if not a bit large, but the 45W power adapter Sonos includes is just too large. This charger is smaller than the original Move’s but it still juts out too far from the wall to be hidden behind furniture. There are some flat-profile chargers out there that use gallium-nitride that would have been a better fit for the Move 2, and Sonos should have included one here. While it’s good you can connect the charging base to any third-party charger now, this shouldn’t be a problem users need to solve.

The Move 2’s Type-C port is upgraded over the original, now capable of accepting audio inputs from Sonos’ line-in adapter. You can also use the Move 2 as a battery bank for your smartphone with a direct Type-C connection, but power is all you can get out of the Move 2 on your phone. Sonos still doesn’t let you use the Move 2 as a USB audio device and forces users to pay for an adapter. It’s an even more disappointing limitation here than it was on the Era 100 and 300 speakers. With those speakers, the primary intent of the USB-C port is to let you connect to a record or CD player. If Sonos wants us to take the Move 2 outside, why not let us send music directly from our phones without a dongle too?

Bluetooth is arguably the biggest usability upgrade with the Move 2. The original required you to flip a switch on the speaker to go between WiFi and Bluetooth mode. Now, just like the Roam and Era speakers, Bluetooth can be enabled while still keeping the speaker on WiFi. This means you can use the Move 2 as a Bluetooth receiver for your whole home system if a friend wants to share music from their device without hopping on to your WiFi network. Bluetooth connections are snappy to initiate, with the Move 2 appearing in my phone’s Bluetooth menu within seconds, just like the Era speakers. 

Great sound for everywhere you go

Audio quality from the Move 2 is predictably comparable to the Era 100 but not identical. Both speakers showcase Sonos’ typical audio tuning choices with clear vocals and rich-not-boomy bass. The stereo tweeters really do produce pleasing highs and mids, with female vocals benefitting the most over the company’s older mono speakers. This isn’t a speaker anyone would buy for critical listening to scratch their HiFi itch, but it will impress the average listener far more than most off the shelf Bluetooth speakers.

While the Move 2 isn’t the most elegant speaker to take on a quick hike, it does sound amazingly clear outdoors. Think of it more as the campout speaker in your pack, with the Roam being the one that makes the hike. Outdoor testing was when I most appreciated the Move 2’s always-on Auto TruePlay. The speaker is loud enough alone to overcome the rush of my shower water without adjustments, but outdoors it’s doing a lot more work to sound good. I could play the Move 2 at much lower volumes than I assumed I’d need to and still appreciate the playlist my fianceé had curated for our picnic date in the park. There are LOTS of loud and large Bluetooth speakers out there meant for this use case, but the Move 2 is the only one that can blend in as a home speaker when you get back.

A great speaker, caveats and all

If you’re hoping to use the Move 2 in most places you’d otherwise use an Era 100, it is mostly up to that task save for some key limitations. The most obvious to me in my testing is that the bass on the Move 2 isn’t quite as impactful at high volumes. At volume level 80, there’s a noticeable roll off in the bass compared to the Era 100, and you can tell the mid-woofer is no longer proportionally increasing volume with the tweeters. This leaves music feeling a bit empty at high volumes which will be a problem in larger spaces. I suspected this was a limitation brought on by the Move 2’s battery housing, and that Sonos needs to limit the woofer to protect the more delicate parts of the enclosure. Sonos confirmed to Pixel Dash that the bass roll off is intentional to "protect the power system and sound experience."

Another use case you should avoid with the Move 2 is stereo pairing. Yes, it works, but at $900 Sonos has some superior alternatives. If you just want a stereo pair of speakers for stereo music playback, two Era 100s will serve you best for $500, and provide better bass output at high volumes. If you can afford to drop $900 on your sound system, a pair of Era 300s will sound infinitely better than a pair of Move 2s and offer compatibility with Dolby Atmos tracks to boot. Plus, both the Era 100 and 300 systems can be paired with a Sonos Sub down the line, where a pair of Move 2s is locked out of Sub compatibility. 

I can wholeheartedly recommend the Move 2 to anyone who had their doubts about the original Move, like myself, who is looking at outfitting their home with several Sonos speakers. The Move 2 is a great alternative for those more occasional spaces, while Sonos’ wall-powered speakers should be your anchor in the spaces you always want sound available. The Move 2 will fit well in your home as well as any Sonos speaker, while offering unparalleled flexibility. This also makes it a great starter speaker for anyone looking to get into the Sonos ecosystem, provided you can afford its asking price. The Move 2 marks the end of a very exciting year for Sonos fans and leaves the company’s core offerings stronger than ever as it expands into more new markets going forward. 

[pi-cat000]

BNHA: Kakashi dimension hops crossover (1)

Summary: Kakashi gets dumbed into the My Hero Academia universe through random plot devise.

Characters:  Kakashi Hatake

Fandoms: My Hero Academia and Naruto

WARNINGS: Mentions of violence/injury

Inspired by Unforeseen Mayhem by Aerugonian 

Here is their tumblr (all their work is so good)

(NEXT)

...

Kakashi thinks he might have died. He remembers the flash of steel and Obito’s face or maybe it had been Madara. His memory of the events leading up to the attack are hazy after receiving one too many hits to the head. What he does remember is the slowly spinning, hypnotic red of a Sharingan, and the quick build-up then explosion of chakra.

Then there was excruciating pain in his left eye and…darkness…

…

Kakashi opens his remaining, usable eye to gaze up at tall angled structures that stretch into a grey overcast sky. He can’t feel the left side of his face, his limbs are numb and unresponsive, and there is the damp of blood soaking through his hair. The bone-deep ache of chakra exhaustion is so all-encompassing that he can barely lift his hand let alone stop the bleeding. Around him, there are several people yelling in shock and surprise. Civilians he vaguely notes as he clings to consciousness. There is no sign of Madera, Obito or any of Kakashi’s allies for that matter.

When his vision dims for a second time he thinks that this, this would be his last breath. Alone, severely injured, in a foreign location and with only civilians as help? It was a death sentence.

He is wrong in the end.

…

Kakashi wakes up in a strange hospital bed surrounded by the strangest people he has ever seen. He also wakes up covered in bandages, his more serious injures either treated or in various stages of recovery.

The air is dry with a distinct lack of chakra. It is something he would usually only see in a prison cell made to contain dangerous shinobi in which chakra draining fuinjutsu arrays were applied to the walls and floor. There are no fuinjutsu arrays here. This is not a prison cell. For one, there is a large window. Secondly, there is a constant stream of doctors, nurses and other patients moving in, out and around the building. Finally, the door to the room is not locked. It doesn’t even have a lock.

After memorising the comings and goings of the people working in the strange hospital, he takes some time to scout. Even while injured and drained of chakra, he has enough skill and experience to avoid the workers and other sickly people he shares his room with.

 The world outside his window is one of cement, concrete and brick, with tall imposing structures covered in reflective glass standing higher than any building he has seen before. The closest point of comparison he has are the buildings in the Hidden-Rain and Stone villages but even those are a loose approximation. The hospital is both similar to Konoha’s main hospital, abet a lot bigger and full of strange equipment and technology. The people, despite their lack of chakra, display odd and inconstant abilities, techniques and physical deformities. One of the doctors has a lizard tail and he catches a glimpse of a man with a wooden block for a head. He sees a woman heal a cut with a simple hand wave. Either he is in an unusually elaborate and detailed genjutsu or he is very far away from Kohoha.

Everything is so odd and strange that he is well and truly stumped, leaving him with nothing else to do but quickly return to his hospital room. At least the weird chakra-less people are non-hostiles and willing to provide much needed medical attention. Though he is, as of yet, uncertain about the purpose or motive behind said medical attention seeing as he was a complete unknown to them.

After some consideration, Kakashi decides to wait. He has no idea how he ended up in the place aside from a loose theory that involved his still healing Kamui Sharingan. Additionally, there was no use trying to get back home with stab wounds, his leg broken, his ribs cracked, his shoulder muscles torn and his chakra levels so pathetically low that he’d probably kill himself if he tried.

He takes solace in the fact that his presence, while probably missed to some extent- he likes to think so anyway- wouldn’t impact the outcome of any major conflict. With Naruto’s stubbornness and Sakura’s tenacity, home would be waiting for him, even if he took a bit of time getting there.

…

After a week of information gathering -ie pretending to be unconscious and listening to conversations- Kakashi concludes that the people operating the hospital are relatively harmless. They seem to be under the mistaken impression that Kakashi is a citizen of their village and thus automatically entitled to medical attention. This is despite his lack of identification or history with the place. Such a thing would never happen in Konoha as even civilians were carefully monitored and tracked. Without identification or relatives/friends to vouch for them, a civilian would more likely be thrown out of the village than given what was surely resource-consuming medical treatment. It is lucky for him that there are apparently so many civilians in this village that their shinobi-equivalent forces couldn’t properly keep track of them all. Another point in favour of it not being any sort of hidden-village or any place he was familiar with.

 “Oh, thank goodness!” Says the greying, middle-aged man in a white coat as he approaches Kakashi's bed, “You’re finally awake. How do you feel.”

“Ah…a bit tired,” Kakashi plasters on a confused smile, raising his undamaged hand to rub the back of his head, hunching his shoulders for good measure. The perfect image of a disoriented patient.

 “What happened? Where am I?”

There was only so much he could achieve be pretending to be unconscious and snooping around at night. It was time to get a real feel for residents of this strange place and figure out his next move. This meant integrating into the local culture.  

“No need to worry. You’re in Hosu General Hospital and you’re well on your way to recovery,” A nod and the doctor moves forward to stand beside his bed, “A little drowsiness is a normal side effect of the pain medication we have you on. Now, if I may have your name?”

“Kakashi.” If they hadn’t recognised the Sharingan when they had bandaged it up, then they most likely wouldn’t recognise his name either.

“Well, Kakashi,” The man says with no hint of acknowledgement, “My name is Wada Yasutoki and I’m here to make sure you are recovering properly. Can you tell me if you are feeling any discomfort or pain at the moment?”

“Hmmm…my arm and leg?”

“Would you be able to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10?”

Kakashi thinks for a second and shrugs, “3.” Honestly, he only notices the pain when he’s consciously paying attention.

Another nod and Doctor Wada fusses about, examining the bandages around his shoulder and then his leg, “Well, they seem to be healing as well as any broken limb, maybe even a bit faster. And the stab wound near your chest is almost completely gone.” A thoughtful hum follows the statement. “If not for your left eye I would say you had a healing or regeneration quirk…hmmm…maybe a passive healing factor linked to your quirk…?” Wada looks to him, waiting for confirmation and Kakashi shrugs. From his nightly snooping he knows that ‘quirk’ is the term for the bloodline ability things the people here had.

The Doctor doesn’t press the matter instead asking, “Is there any discomfort in the left side of your face?”

“No.” Kakashi doesn’t want the people here touching his eye any more than necessary. The fact that it is draining charka at its usual sluggish rate was a sign that it was, at least, somewhat functional and that’s good enough for him. He guesses he should be thankful for landing in a place with medicine advanced enough to save it.

“You had us concerned when you didn’t wake after we saw to all your injuries,” The Doctor continues, “Your left eye took quite a bit of damage and we were worried that there might have been some sort of brain injury. If you feel dizzy, lightheaded or confused please, do not hesitate to call a nurse.”

The man shakes his head and sighs, “Now, I understand if you want a bit of space after going through such a traumatic event but if you could provide any details concerning the predicament that ended with you so badly injured it would be a great help to the investigation.”

Kakashi gives a faked confused hum and smiles apologetically, “Sorry Doctor Wada. I'm having trouble remembering much of anything really.”

“Nothing? No details about the potential assailant at all. What they look like? Their quirk?”

“No. Where is Hosu General Hospital by the way?”

His bland expression obviously causes his doctor some concern as he is subjected to a penlight being shone in his uncovered eye.

 “It is located in Hosu City, a ward of Tokyo. Where is the last place you remember being?”

The names mean nothing to him.  Kakashi schools his features into one of complete confusion, “I don’t remember.” 

It’s not even a lie this time. 

After the admission,  Doctor Wada only grows more concerned and Kakashi is subjected to many reassurances that it is completely normal to forget a few things after a brain injury and that he shouldn’t worry himself too much. The level of comforting and reassuring is a bit much if he is being honest. Never before has he longed for the cold frowns of  Konoha’s medic-nin.

“I’ll have to schedule you in for an MRI. If you’re having trouble recalling basic facts alongside your long-term memories, then there might a serious problem.” The older man finally concludes, having run through an extensive list of questions regarding Kakashi’s history all of which he answers with vague half-truths.  Where did he grow up? Somewhere with a lot of trees. Did he have any close relatives? He thinks they might have died when he was little. What does he do for a living? Commission work. Did he have any colleagues? He doesn’t know where they are. So on and so forth.

“It’s a shame your ID and phone were missing when they found you. Stolen by the bastard who put you in this situation no doubt,” the Doctor sighs again, “We might have been able to track down your records. Oh well, we’ll do our best with what we have.”

Kakashi doesn’t speak, pretending to be deep in thought. Mentally, he pats himself on the back for an infiltration gone surprisingly well considering his lack of preparation and the flakiness of the ‘sorry I don’t remember my backstory’ excuse.

“I don’t suppose you remember anything about your quirk,” the doctor asks, “Ocular quirks can have odd effects on brain activity and ability to process information. It might give us a place to start.”

From what he had seen, ‘quirks’ tended to have a specific function but he is still trying to figure out their limits. All he knew for sure was that none of them used chakra.

“It’s called the Sharingan.” He offers to see what the doctor does with the information, “I don’t remember much else about it.”

“Hmmm, ‘copy wheel eye’…it’s a descriptive name at least. Maybe a quirk that deals with memorisation or information recall. I will see if I can find it on the Quirk Registry. Hopefully, that will be enough. ”

Kakashi nods loosely in agreement, filing away the fact that there was a Quirk Registry for later contemplation. 

(NEXT)

[tf2workbench]

And when the patient woke up, his skeleton was missing

The Vita-Saw has long been an extremely contentious weapon for its ability to preserve Ubercharge after death. It used to be an automatic attribute, but in Jungle Inferno it was reworked:

Vita-Saw Bonesaw (+) On hit: Steal one of the target’s organs. Each stored organ preserves 15% Ubercharge when you respawn, to a maximum of 60%. (-) -10 max health

This version is certainly better than the old one, since it makes you work for the Ubercharge preservation - and the enemy team can stop you from getting it in the first place. However, there are still a few problems with an insurance policy like this.

The Vita-Saw works a little bit like the Ubersaw in that, when you hit people, it gives you an attribute related to Ubercharge. It’s substantially different, however, in that the Vita-Saw’s whole existence is predicated on you dying.

This happens, of course; it’s pretty common in games like TF2. But in terms of the flow of gameplay, death represents a pause; it’s a natural reset, both for you and the enemy. For the Medic, whose powerful Ubercharge resets on death, it’s a big setback, and for the opponents, it’s an opportunity that should be pressed. 

Typically, interfering with this flow can cause some pacing problems. Provided a Vita-Saw Medic can collect an organ or two, their next death is much less severe, seeing as it shaves a minimum of 10 seconds off the Ubercharge rate for the stock Medigun. Although a coordinated enemy will expect this (presumably their teammate reported that the Medic managed to collect organs), it’s still a troubling change in the pace of the game. Killing a Medic is almost always difficult but supremely rewarding - if you can break through the enemy team and dispatch the doctor, you’re rewarded with a good long time without an enemy healer, plus your Medic has more time to build Uber.

That leads me to the next point: most Medics do not plan on dying. They are the most valuable class in the game, and a good team will absolutely protect them to the end. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, but a Medic’s death counts will usually be the lowest on the team.

That’s a major part of why the Vita-Saw, despite its apparent power, is so underused. The Ubersaw is so much more reliable, because it works when you’re doing normal gameplay things; you don’t have to die to make it useful.

How would I rework the Vita-Saw? Well, tough question. It’s one of those weapons where I seriously need to consider changing its whole aspect, since we’ve already established that “beyond the grave” type attributes are not usually good for gameplay. But I’ll see what I can do.

Vita-Saw Iteration 2 Bonesaw (+) On hit: Steal one of the target’s organs. Each stored organ builds Ubercharge 10% faster, up to a maximum of 30%. (-) -25 max health on wearer

Instead of a flat 25%, this is useful for as long as you’re alive, and boy is it strong. The stock Medigun can now charge as quickly as 28 seconds, while the Kritzkrieg can be ready in just over 22. That’s a massive advantage that can’t be balanced for in any way that would be playable.

Vita-Saw Iteration 3 Bonesaw (+) Ubercharge build rate increases up to +30% when health is low (-) -15% Ubercharge rate

Again with the pacing concerns. This is hard for the enemy team to prepare for, since you never really know how fast the Vita-Saw Medic is building (and you may not even know the Vita-Saw is in play).

I’m in a tough spot here: Medic melees often need some relation to Ubercharge to be usable, but the Ubersaw nearly has a monopoly on playable Uber-related attributes.

Vita-Saw Iteration 4 Bonesaw (+) On hit: Steal one of the target’s organs. Each stored organ increases your Ubercharge duration by 12.5%, up to a maximum of 50%. (-) -25 max health on wearer

This might - might - be workable. A long Ubercharge is very powerful, since it puts more pressure on the enemy Medic to deploy their charge at the right time. But it’s at least ready at the same time it ordinarily would be, meaning that standard Ubercharge advantages still apply.

I’m happy enough with this iteration to say it’s workable. But just in case, let me make another, this one dispensing with the Uber mechanics altogether.

Vita-Saw Iteration 5 Bonesaw (+) On hit: Steal one of the target’s organs. Each stored organ increases your maximum health by 10, up to +60. (-) -20 max health on wearer

Don’t get me wrong - this is still a powerful weapon. The harder a Medic is to kill, the more dangerous the entire team becomes. But 130 health is noticeably less than 150, and enemies can counter this by not getting too close to the Medic in the first place.

What do you think? Is the Vita-Saw worthy of continued existence? Do you have a different idea for what to do with it? I’m not the end-all authority, and my creativity is nowhere near infinite, so I’d welcome your input!

[anthonycrowley]

this is a genuine question, but if the spnhater blog was part of a sociology project would it even be ethical to use the data gathered from it?

okay, i do actually feel qualified to answer this, because i was actually a soc major in college (and i would like to maybe eventually get my phd, although admittedly right now i am working a 9 to 5 where i don't really use that part of my degree) just please note that while i have done a couple of (minor) qualitative studies, i was always more into quantitative research, which doesn't have the same issues with consent that qualitative does.

would it be ethical? short answer: maybe. depends on what they were planning to do with it, mainly, and how the data was presented, and, depending on how long the 'study' goes on for, if you continue to keep your identity a secret.

long answer: i think the real question is whether or not the data would even be usable for sociology, actually.

for the couple of qualitative observations i've done, i find that consent can get a bit. murky. and when you think about it, it makes sense, and i don't think it's even really unethical - sometimes, sociological observations take place in big, open, public spaces. i've done an observation in a public park, once. two problems arise from this: 1. how could a researcher possibly get informed consent from every single person who happens to be in a public space, every time, and 2. if they did, that would inevitably change how people acted, rendering data useless. you want to see how people act in a situation. think about how you act when you know someone is watching you compared to when you're just doing whatever. it changes, right? in a discipline where you are studying a group and how they behave naturally, this knowledge will likely skew how people behave. you should get consent, when you can, but that's simply not always possible.

the main aspect of consent in sociology when it comes to observational studies is more geared toward anonymity of participants, to the point where someone cannot identify them later, and not outright lying about who you are. (informed consent comes more into play once you've already gotten some of your observational data and perhaps start interviewing people in the group you're observing - at that point you have to identify yourself as a researcher, say what the study is on, talk about how their identity will not be revealed, etc. and actually get consent from the participant). if you're doing a long term ethnographical study, yes, you will probably have to tell residents of the area why you're there - if i wasn't joking about observing people since november 5th, for example, that probably would have been an ethical dilemma in terms of, maybe, people i was following directly, because i would have gotten A Lot Of Data from people who didn't consent or know they were being observed, but if i went to my local grocery store and observed the meat counter for an hour, taking down notes about how people spoke and how they acted, i probably would need permission from the business, but not necessarily the individual people as long as i didn't identify them in any way that could be traced back to them.

the best way i can think of to explain what makes for problems in consent in observational data for sociology is a book from the 1960s called Tearoom Trade by Laud Humphreys, which if you're interested in knowing more about the modern day ethics of sociological research, is basically a manual on what not to do. Humphreys wanted to do research into 'tearooms,' which at the time were a slang term for men's bathrooms where men would meet up and have homosexual sex. problem number one with this is that, well, at the time he was married to a woman and was by all accounts heterosexual*, so he didn't actually have a way to get into these spaces to study participants. what he did was presented himself as a voyeur, so he was allowed entry, and would then observe how these men acted around each other.** that isn't really the main issue with the study though - the real ethical problem came later, because Humphreys would, under false pretenses, interview participants, and he would then record the participants' license plate numbers, find their home addresses, and interview their family members. i hope i don't have to explain to you why that's wrong for like, a bunch of reasons. but his actual observations weren't the problem in and of itself - it was the deception of who he was and the complete disregard of privacy for participants, whether they were a large part of the study conducted by Humphreys (ie a participant who was interviewed) or not.

anyway, circling back. really, the main way that blog (or frankly, any sociological researcher), would be breaching ethics when it comes to observing the tumblr community as a group is if they identified specific people, either through urls or through content. i would argue it may not be wise to directly quote a post, because google exists and the text will be online, but i think as long as you sit back, watch, and discuss what happens around you, you're good, at least until you get to the interview stage. maybe you could argue that if the blog was active for more than like, a couple of hours, they may have needed to get consent of people they were following, but other than that i think the observation aspect is pretty above board. the biggest ethical problem with that blog is more that the blog was deceptive in who they were, which is a problem, but hell, it's a public platform and who's to say the person running the blog doesn't enjoy supernatural? that they're a supernatural blog? i joked about how i was observing supernatural fans since november 5th, and i do enjoy supernatural. if it just went that far, if i just started a separate blog and just. observed for a short period of time, maybe reblogged a few gifsets so people didn't think i was a bot. would that be unethical? i'm not completely sure one way or another.

but i would argue that, if that blog actually were for a sociological study, even if we could determine it was 100% by the books ethical, the data gathered would be completely fucking useless - and for that matter, if i was telling the truth about studying people, that data would probably be largely useless as well. the reason is because both that blog and me actually impacted the community we were quote unquote researching. the blog is now a variable. obviously there is more than one blog, but would those specific people have said those specific things if that specific researcher wasn't there? in general, sociological studies don't have varibles in the same way as psych studies or scientific studies or whatever, because we're studying a group, not the effect a researcher has on a group by doing something the group would not otherwise have done. it's bad research. now, if someone not running the blog observed that, it would probably be fine, but that wasn't the implication. it would be like me sitting in a park and happening to witness a fistfight break out, rather than me doing something to cause the fistfight.

anyway, if it wasn't clear the person who runs that blog (who is not me) is not actually a researcher, and neither am i, currently. but if we were, we probably would have had to be a bit more sound, morally, but there are ways you can get data from an event like that without it being unethical if you don't get informed consent from everyone involved - but you probably would have to be very lucky when it comes to timing. but the person running the blog or their friend certainly could not be the people doing that research. hope that kind of answers the question, if people disagree feel free to discuss.

*this is worded as such because wikipedia just told me, interestingly, Humphreys came out as a gay man in the mid 70s , separated from his wife, and had a male partner from 1980 until his death in 1988. he actually later did a lot of research into gay communities - presumably now from the perspective of a gay man - but, frankly, i think his lasting impact in sociology is still unfortunately on ethics and protecting research participants.

**i suppose it's worth noting, probably because of the above asterisk, that i had heard (yes, before i had heard he came out as gay) that there are theories that the voyeur thing was a front and he was participating to gain entry into these spaces, which he obviously didn't want to disclose, because it was the 1960s and he was married. i only bring this up because, if this were the case, i'd argue that at least the deception to gain entry into the space is no longer really an ethical issue, although the study is still obviously riddled with problems.

[swordoforion]

Orion Digest №31 - The Importance of a State

The question has been asked before - do we need a state, and for that matter, organized society? Humans lived nomadic existences as hunters long before we settled down and formed civilization, and in the eyes of some, the events that resulted are evidence we should abandon modern systems of gathering, all the way from the first civilizations to the long-lasting negative effects of the Industrial Revolution. However, while it is undeniable that the world today is in disarray and disaster, it does not mean we should abandon everything we have learned, and declare organized society a lost cause. We have become closer as a species than ever before, and now, as we near the height of our knowledge, we are becoming well equipped to deal with the problems we have created.

First, let us specify exactly what a state is, and the argument against it. Any citizen, as an individual, has certain needs for survival, and beyond that, for mental health and self-actualization. The world is filled with resources, and people can work to turn those resources into usable forms that we can use to fulfill our survival needs, but the time cost usually means that we have to put our mental health and attainment on hold. The more effective the resource development process is, the less input we need from the average individual, and thus the more time they can spend fulfilling their higher needs.

The system by which resource development is made more effective is economy, which in some forms of societal organization, is separate from the state, but within an ESF system, is incorporated into the state's natural functions. Within economy, instead of everyone working through the complete process to fulfill their needs, they take on a specific task, and receive the same reward, which when divided among a larger population, can be used to decrease the amount of input required from each individual.

To ensure that economy functions as it needs to, and to provide guidelines for the resultant organization of individuals, government, or the state, is formed. ESF government is made up of the people, and thus assumes ownership of the resources, for equal distribution out to the people in exchange for input. It also sets rules to prevent offenses by citizens against others, maintaining order and stability. Within this framework, an individual can live safely and provide minimal input to have their needs fulfilled, and will have time to focus on the task of self-actualization, so long as they remain within the rules of the state.

Many argue against the existence of a state, viewing the requirement to pay taxes, remain within set rules, and provide input to an economy as forceful and coercive. Logically, if they wanted to, they could go and live without owing to anyone, simply providing for themselves and self-governing. Popular among leftist theory is the idea of a 'stateless, classless' society, in which people live freely and self-govern, but peacefully cooperate on matters of public importance, and only use violence in self-defense of their own freedom. Government would cease to exist, with only economy remaining, as people would simply act respectful without legal coercion.

Much of the grounds for this theory comes from rampant corruption in government throughout history - discrimination and greed make their way into the public sector, and those in power use it for their own personal gain. Without government, people are unable to seek power. Admittedly, there are numerous advantages to this approach, as many as there are potential dangers in the foundation of government. However, the same could be said for a stateless society - the absence of a vehicle to seek power and spread discrimination does not mean the abolition of those ideas and drives.

A state of anarchy relies on constant cooperation without legal incentive, as well as allowing the people enough strength to fend off would be attackers and conquerors. In this kind of community, the responsibility of public facilities, such as infrastructure and health care, requires continuous volunteer work from the members of a community. This makes sense, as it benefits most of the community to pitch in. Just the same, everyone would have to agree to keep the peace and not take more than what they need, while having tools for self defense should the need arise.

Both of these conditions, however, rely on the assumption that those members of society who seek greater power and advantage over others are few enough in number to not directly impact society. Throughout history, we have seen that people can be swayed by just a handful of individuals, and result in sweeping them into power. Even in a state of anarchy, a new state could easily rise, since it does not matter the ability of a single individual to fight in self defense - it just requires a majority. With no incentive to follow set rules, the greedy could take power once again, this time on their own terms. The true test of any stateless society is whether the values of peace and harmony are yet universal, because if people are not willing to cooperate, you could fall once more into ruin.

It is in this manner that a state holds superiority, as although it uses forceful coercion to enforce the rules, those rules and the order of society becomes more concrete and stable, and over time, a moral society can instill those standards upon its citizens and future generations. If anarchy were possible, it would be after a period of moral state rule, in which the population is conditioned to the ideas of cooperation and harmony required to maintain a stateless society. Of course, the state itself needs to be moral, which means that careful safeguards need to be put in place to prevent the rise of an elite class or the presence of discrimination within political power. In other words, if we ever want to live without a government, we need one that is democratic and fair to teach us how to do so.

In our current context, the environmental collapse and unequal wealth distribution of Earth also pose problems not solvable without a larger and more coercive body of law, as it will require actions not in our immediate self interest (namely, getting rid of wealth and putting ourselves at economic disadvantage for the sake of others and long term growth). Even current governments cannot put forth the necessary effort out of fear of risk - it will take a state created from the outset for that express goal with more jurisdiction to accomplish it. Even taking into consideration the concerns of those who wish for a stateless society, we can't live a simple life if the planet is destroyed, but we can save the planet first and then get down to the business of the state later.

Beyond the climate crisis, though, a world federal government gives us an increased level of connection and coordination across the world, should another crisis arise, or in case aid should be needed by any area of the world. With a much bigger population and worldview, the genie is out of the bottle on simplistic societies, and with a simple touch of a button, we can talk with people all over the world, which has more benefits than downsides. We can understand each other better, see places across the globe, and with global democracy, do our part to make the entire world a better place.

Should we develop to a point where we have staved off global crisis and maintain communication and coordination, a stateless society could be possible, but the continuation of a democratically malleable state would prevent the collapse of society should a dictator ever rise too powerful for the common populace to defeat. In either case, there are set rules that are agreed to, whether by law or by social convention, but only a state has the power to effectively enforce them, and even if we never have to, it's good to be prepared for the risk.

The only true detriment to a state is the ability of the government to become corrupt, as it is far more dangerous when the state itself is an enemy, compared to a simple warlord arising amidst a stateless society. This is why the creation of such a government must be done with careful consideration to future interpretation of the law and democratic structure - today, we deal with corrupt governments sometimes caused by looser legislation and little vigilance to prevent the powerful from bending the rules to bring about oppression. A world federal constitution must be thorough in its description of the law, and democracy must be kept in mind at every stage of the process.

- DKTC FL

[atomicblasphemy]

Brief essay on the magical properties of human anatomy and physiology

Augustus Porter

Human Appreciation Society’s Journal

Abstract: The recent events that took place at the conformatorium left the Boiling Isles’ population with a myriad of doubts. Although for most such doubts seem to concern the continuation of our social structure and a naive undervaluation of our glorious Emperor’s legitimacy on the throne, for the Empire’s scientific community the point of contingency is another. Namely, the paradigmatic shift in our understanding of the relationship between humans and the use of magic. In this essay I shall investigate where our past errors stem from and raise hypothesis that aim at fixing them. Those will regard both the differences in the anatomy and physiology of humans and witches as well as the some of our potential misconceptions regarding the nature of magic itself. Moreover, I shall offer a thesis according to which human are, indeed, inherently capable of wielding magic without the use of subterfuges such as Luz Noceda’s glyphs.

Introduction and methodology:

As the Mr. Porter reported on the battle taking place a few weeks ago between our glorious Emperor Bellos and Luz “The Human” Noceda, the academic communities in Bonosborough and all other major cities in the Isles scrambled to come to terms with the disruption of centuries of accumulated beliefs regarding our extra-dimensional neighbors. We knew of their existence through a scattered assortment of artifacts provenient of their realm, sightings of their kind in the Isles (which always were taken more as the stuff of legends than fact, a conception now under scrutiny), and tall tales of witches’ adventures in their exotic, foreign lands. Of the last source, it is of particular note the recent reports of one Ms. Clawthorne, normally taken by the academy as little more than indulgent fiction. Now however, any unfounded skepticism gains the contours of esoteric stubbornness and it is our duty as makers of knowledge to use of the utmost rigor in any further statements regarding human nature. Therefore, firstly we need to reexamine our previous beliefs regarding magic itself. In a gross oversimplification, those could be described as: witches are capable of wielding magic; humans are not as they do not posses the magic bile sack attacked to their hearts right atrium. In other words, we placed that particular part of witch anatomy as the beginning of the causal chain that leads one to be capable of casting spells and enchantments. However, seeing how Luz “The Human” Noceda (hereafter to be referred as the subject), was able to perform magic nonetheless, we are now forced to face the question of which truly is the nature of magic. That is to say: is magic a prerogative of witchkind or is it merely an pervasive part of our which our bodies developed to manipulate.

In order to properly investigate this problem and hopefully create a new paradigm our methodological approach should be twofold. The first moment can be called the speculative stage, consisting in the bibliographical research of what human medical and scientific literature is available to us and ostensive interviews with both the subjects herself as well as witches that are part of her social circle. As for bibliography, the majority of it was supplied by a source that wishes to remain anonymous due to the questionable legality of her distribution of said tomes. Those seem to, fortunately, be especially up to date and thorough. It is with great joy that I announce that, as of the time of writing, the tomes used for this paper are being cataloged by the Bonesborough library’s staff and should be available for reference by time of publication. As for the interviews, those have been carefully transcribed by Hexside’s Human Appreciation Society and are currently in the process of editing.

The second moment, which would only make sense once the findings of the speculative stage are made clear to the reader, can be deemed the experimental stage, consists in using the subject for testing the theories resulting from the speculative stage, be it in a passive or an active manner. By “passive experimentation” I merely mean the observation of her interactions with magic as she grows further acquainted with our world, growing to become part of it. The active testing would consist in guiding the subjects behavior, mostly in terms of her diet, in order to ascertain the validity or falsehood of the theories resulting from the speculative stage.

The validity of our statements about humans:

As it is know, the scientific endeavor and the validity of its statements depends on the available empirical evidence. In this sense, the first step is the mere observation and subsequent description of nature and it’s phenomena, only then one should feel confident enough as to identify patterns. Those patterns, if resulting from a large enough pool of observed phenomena should provide predictability to future phenomena as long as they have similar causes and happen under similar conditions as the ones observed prior, that is: the ones used for the identification and description of the aforementioned patters. Should those predictions prove true through experimentation in a controlled environment – that is, the manipulation of the causal relations that should result in the expected phenomenon – then we can be confident in the validity of our statements.

The seldom nature of our kind’s interaction with humans, however, renders any scientific method of this sort impossible. We simply have no access to a sufficient pool from which to obtain the necessary evidence. Thus we can only trust in testimony, legends and literature that made its way across dimensions. In this sense, however, the arrival of the subject in our lands is quite possibly the greatest breakthrough in the history of humanistic studies.

Background on magical and medical assumptions:

Tracing back centuries, the magic bile sack attached to a witch’s heart has been believed to be the main source of magical power. The apparent lack of such in human anatomy, which is in fact corroborated by human medical texts, being pointed as the culprit for their lack of magic. Therefore,  the role of  the magic bile sack has always been substantial in our understanding of witch physiology and of the nature of magic itself. Little process has been made over time, however, when it comes to our understanding of the nature of the contents of the bile sack, despite the best efforts of some of the greatest minds in both healing and potion making, the scientific community having to resign to speculation and the observation of the effects, rather than the causes. The common assumption, therefore, has always been that magic was something of a biochemical matter: the contents of the magic bile sack being metabolized by the witch’s body, thus producing magic.

This premise of magic’s purely bodily causes can no longer stand. After all, the evidence of an individual lacking the magic bile sack proves that magical feats are still possible whilst refuting that their origin stems from the caster’s body. Moreover, the use of glyphs, designs made in paper or other materials, as a form of both witches and humans casting magic shows that we can feel justified in believing that magic stems, instead from the environment. To quote the subject herself in one of the interviews: “magic is everywhere.” In other words, the glyphs seem to function as a form of conduit or magnet for the magic in the surrounding, thus turning it into the spell intended by the caster, loosely in accordance to the design made on what we can call the casting medium.

This pervasive nature of magic in the Boiling Isles, however, is still insufficient to explain the physiological function of the magic bile sack when it comes to magic wielding. After all, should that anatomical feature be irrelevant for such, the subject would not need to resort to her glyphs for wielding magic. However, we can no longer see it as a sine qua non condition for it either. Moreover, it raises a further, particularly poignant question as to what is the full extent of humans’ magical potential, if they can come to wield magic without the assistance of glyphs, wands, or staffs.

Before moving forward it is worth noting that since all accounts seem confirm the absence of manifestations of magic in the human realm, the causes for it are also likewise absent there. In other words, we can feel comfortable stating that magic itself is a particularity of this world.

Speculations on the magical bile sack:

If we are to assume the belief that magic stems from the Boiling Isles’ environment as valid, to which there seems to be no evidence on the contrary, then we have to divulged into the topic of the magic bile sack’s contents. As proven by observations in a number of necrotic investigations – a method humans seem to have a much firmer grasp on than ourselves, calling it by the name of autopsy –, the fluids therein do present a number of magical properties, being potentially usable for potion magic, although such practices are famously considered as taboo. However, no attempts at deconstructing it as to further understand it’s composition have been successful thus far. This could possibly be due to such contents being little more than a condensed form of the magical humours present in these Isles’ air, water, dirt and their respective product. That is to say: once the magic pervasive in the environment is absorbed into a witch’s, it is metabolized through the digestive and respiratory tracts, taken to the magical bile sack by the circulatory system wherein it becomes condensed and stored.

Being a species native to a land where magic is a feature would be, should one of humanity’s exponents be correct in his theory of evolution – by the name of Charles Darwin -, then further be cause for the magic bile sack’s peculiar placement in witch anatomy. By being next to the heart  it would be able to transfer the condensed magic to a part of the witch’s body through which magic can be properly cast. More often than the body part in question being the left hand, having a direct arterial connection to the heart. It is also worth noting that small, nearly imperceptible, canal like structures have been observed connecting the interior of the magic bile sack to the inside of the right atrium, thus lending further credence to the present hypothesis

However, those are but speculations hinging on even prior speculations. We cannot as of yet assess their validity. Experimentation should be conducted in order to it achieve such status.

Speculations on human anatomy and physiology:

A way for conducting such experiments would be by placing a test subject which lacks the magical bile sack in conditions that should ideally favor the accumulation of the, for lack of a better word, magical goo present in the magic bile sack. Should after sufficient time under such conditions the subjects starts displaying magical capacity associated with their bodies – that is, without the medium of objects such as glyphs, wands, or staffs - , then the theory proposed in the previous section is proven as valid. However, should merely this be enough we would be able to witness demons casting spells as a common occurrence. The test subject for the experiment should follow a particular condition: the presence of an anatomical feature that serves to clear function in their bodies. Demons lack any such feature, humans don’t.

In all the available human medical literature, it was possible to observe the presence, at the juncture of the small and large intestines, of a small protrusion, finger like in shape, that by all accounts has no known purpose in the human body. If the aforementioned human theory of evolution is to be believed, at some point in the development of humans as a species that feature did serve some unknown purpose. However, with the lack of a need for it, it atrophiated, eventually achieving its current status. The humans named it the appendix, and as per the subject’s testimony, a common human ailment, in particular in her own family, is something called appendicitis. To the best of this researcher’s knowledge, it consists in a potentially fatal inflammation on the appendix, leading to severe pain and demanding the surgical removal of that body part and subsequent treatment with some type of human medicine called “anti-biotics”.

Given how similar human and witch anatomy are in terms or organ distribution in the thorax and abdomen safe for those two particular features and the shape of the ears, we have no reason to discredit Darwin’s theory, further implying that there would be a common link between humans and witches. That is to say that, at some point, both species were capable of wielding magic, even if by differing means (as will be discussed further). At some point, however, this possibility was taken from humans by unknown circumstances. In other words: there is no reason for us to refute a priori humans potential for casting magic through their bodies; however, without further experimental evidence, we cannot yet wholeheartedly support such theories as of yet.

It is important for us to note as well the differences between the magic bile sack and the appendix. As previously stated, by being attached to the heart – that is, the core of the vascular system – the concentrated magic humour contained in the magic bile sack is allowed to travel through the witch’s whole body, especially the arm, thus allowing the caster a great amount of control over the outpouring of magic associated with each given spell. Given the position of the appendix however, such dexterity and autonomy over magic wielding is unlikely for humans. Being placed at the end of the digestive tract, the movements of the magic humours are likely to only be capable of following the anatomy of the bowels. In this researcher’s opinions, the most probable option is that the movement of magic, once leaving the appendix, is highly dependent on the movement of the digestive vapors, with the casting of magic being concomitant with the emanation of such gases. As for solid rejects, I do not dare speculate.1

As a further note on this hypothetical means of spell casting supposedly inherent to humans, it should be stated that, if witches and humans were at some point competing species, the lack of dexterity and precision in human’s magic casting would not present itself as disadvantageous. After all, considering how, following the theory on the environmental origins of magic from earlier, magic enters the body by being either inhaled, eaten or drank by a magic caster, that would mean that the trajectory between the absorption and the condensation and further storage of the magic goo would be much shorter in humans than it is in witches. Moreover, seeing how it would be stored in an organ associated with digestion, the condensation of magical humours into magical goo should happen more efficiently than in an organ such as the heart, allowing for a greater degree of purity. As a result, the spells cast by humans – it is unlikely that the imprecise character of this magical outlet would allow for complex operations such as enchantments – would have a notably larger amount of raw magical power imbued into it. As an illustration, the reader can think of the magic cast by witches as akin to a bow and arrow – precise, highly correlated to the individual caster’s prowess -, whereas magic cast by humans would more similar to a trebuchet – it will achieve it’s intended goal all while also causing significant collateral damage.

Experiment design:

As the reader most likely was already able to extrapolate, any testing of the hypothesis and theories stated here will demand that the testers induce as much consumption of, supposedly, magic imbued food and drinks on the subject. The reason for this approach is to heighten as much as possible the input of magical humours in the subjects body, thus accelerating the production of magical goo in the appendix. Fortunately, the subject seems to like our local cuisine and to also have a considerable appetite.

However, in order to avoid any nutritional dysfunctions on the subject due to neglect of some as of yet unknown particularity in humans’ dietary needs, a “human diet” should also be observed. Naturally our source of knowledge as to what a normal human meal consists of is the subject herself. As per her instructions efforts to replicate items such as “borgars”, “pizza”, “chicken tendies”2,, , and “Dr. Pepper” using inputs available in the Boiling Isles are, as of the time of writing, underway. However, under no circumstances should be allowed the consumption of milk or any dairy products.

A diet constructed around those two principles should be able to expedite the subject’s magical growth over a still unclear amount of time, thus allowing for meticulous observation, all while ensuring her well being and health. As the scenario progresses, updates on her condition should be submitted for publication in this very journal.

Conclusions:

As of now, we are admittedly afloat in a sea of speculations. The paradigmatic shifted brought about by the knowledge that humans are capable of casting some form of magic has forced us to reevaluate our understanding of the human species, their world, their culture, and what all of that means to witchkind. But more importantly if forced us to reconsider ourselves, what we know about our very world is now put into questioning, and we should not rush to the quickest answer in fear of the unknown. Instead, we should practice patience, allow time to offer us the much needed evidence   for the construction of a new, more sturdy foundations for our beliefs on our own world, our bodies, and reality itself. We live in exciting and interesting times indeed.

We have cause for optimism, however. But further speculations on this matter should only come accompanied by certainty on the premises.

Bibliography:

The land of the beasts with big meaty hands: a grimoire of my adventures (and misadventures) in the human world. Clawthorne, Edalyn – Owl House Free Press, Bonesborough, 30 AB.

Comprehensive glossary of demonology: their differences, abilities, and why you should tremble beneath their feet. Of Demons, King – Owl House Free Press, Bonesborough, 38 AB.

The wonders of the human realm: tales of their many incredible artifacts that should definitely buy, don’t even think about it. Clawthorne, Edalyn – Owl House Free Press, Bonesborough, 40 AB

Les passions de l’âme. Descartes, René – Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, Paris, 1964

Getting rid of a human infestation in three easy steps, and what to do if they all fail. Clawthorne, Edalyn – Owl House Free Press, Bonesborough, 50 AB

How to train your human: a pedagogical guide. Clawthorne, Edalyn – Owl House Free Press, Bonesborough, 50 AB.

You’re an interdimensional mom now: challenges of caring for a magicless child in a magicfilled world. Clawthorne, Eda – Owl House Free Press, Bonesborough, 50 AB

First hand accounts on a teenage human’s magic puberty: tales of horror. Of Demons, King et Clawthorne, Edalyn – Owl House Free Press, Bonesborough, 50 AB

The differences between humans and abominations: which ones can and cannot be dissected. Park, Willow – Human Appreciation Society’s journal; Hexside Publications, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Can humans be considered demons? A zoological debate. Of Demons, King – Owl House Free Press, Bonesborough, 50 AB

75 thesis against humans and their deceitful nature. Blight, Amity – Blight Family Editions, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Between black and white, the inherent subjectivity of a witch’s judgment of humans and other musings. Blight, Amity – Blight Family Editions, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Repentance: corrections on my previous stance regarding humans. Blight, Amity – Blight Family Editions, Bonesborough, 50 AB

A treatise on witchkind’s superiority over humans (Unabridged) – Captain of the Banshees, Boscha the – Human Depreciation Society Quarterly; Hexside Publications, Bonesborough, 50 AB

An introduction to Claude Lévi-Strauss’ “The elementary structures of kinship”. Blight, Amity. Blight Family Editions, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Second treatise on witchkind’s superiority over humans (Unabridged) – Captain of the Banshees, Boscha the – Human Depreciation Society Quarterly; Hexside Publications, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Interdimensional relationships and taboo: essays of speculative anthropology. Blight, Amity – Blight Family Editions, Bonesborough, 50 AB

No u: a response to Boscha’s treatises; vol. I - XV. Blight, Amity – Blight Family Editions, Bonesborough, 50 AB

No u: a response to Amity Blight; vol. I – XVI – Captain of the Banshees, Boscha the – Human Depreciation Society Quarterly; Hexside Publications, Bonesborough, 50 AB

What to do when a human disrupts on circle of friends, do you befriend them? A practical guide – of the Bard Track, Skara – Human Appreciation Society’s Journal, Hexside Publications, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Weaponizing your younger sisters thing for humans: a practical guide. Blight, Emira et Blight, Edric – Blight Family Editions, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Where did we go wrong? Identifying and stopping your child’s human infatuation in the early stages. Blight, Odalia et Blight, Alador – Blight Family Editions, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Getting away with murdering your entire family because they won’t stopping getting between you and your human: a completely fictional novel with no bearings in reality whatsoever. Blight, Amity – Blight Family Editions, Bonesborough, 50 AB.

Peaceful conflict resolution in a family setting. Blight, Emira et Blight, Edric et Blight, Odalia et Blight, Alador – Blight Family Editions, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Honing your time management skills: writing an absurd amount of pages in an impossibly short time span. Blight, Amity – Blight Family Editions, Bonesborough, 50 AB.

My diary (only read it for science). Noceda, Luz – Personal archive

The origin of species. Darwin, Charles – John Murray, London, 1859

Beware of humans: The round eared menace. Bellos, Emperor -  The Empire’s Imperial Press, Emperor’s Castle, 4 AB

The adventures of the Good Witch Azura. Coceda, Namilla – Cambridge University Press, Cambrige, England, 2010 - 2020

How to identify and hunt humans: correspondence with Lilith Clawthorne. Mora, Kiki - The Empire’s Imperial Press, Emperor’s Castle, 37 AB.

The guerrilla tactics used by humans: a collection of military essays. Steve, The - The Empire’s Imperial Press, Emperor’s Castle, 49 AB

Human psychology and how to best exploit it. Fearbringer, Grometheus The - Hexside Publications, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Capitalism: human’s best invention. Grimhammer III, Tibbly Tibbly – Blight Family Editions, Bonesborough, 36 AB

The benefits of the human prison system and how it can applied on witches. Wrath, Warden – The Empire’s Imperial Press, Emperor’s Castle, 42 AB

Speed reading. Porter, Augustus - Hexside Publications, Bonesborough, 50 AB

On the passions and errors of the soul. Galen, Claudius – Ohio State University Press, [R E D A C T E D], 1963

The pedagogical challenges of educating a multi-track human student. Bump, Principal -  Hexside Publications, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Coping with regret. Bump, Principal - Hexside Publications, Bonesborough, 50 AB.

Leviathan. Hobbes, Thomas – Andrew Crooke, London, 1651

The many benefits of using humans for ransom: a case study. Clawthorne, Lilith - The Empire’s Imperial Press, Emperor’s Castle, 50 AB

Biochemistry for dummies. Moore, John T. et Langley, Richard – Wiley Publishing Inc., Hoboken, 2008

Apologizing to a human for using her for ransom: a memoir. Clawthorne, Lilith – Owl House Free Press, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Never letting your sister forget she used your human daughter for ransom: heartfelt poetry. Clawthorne, Edalyn – Owl House Free Press, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Anatomy and physiology for dummies. Rae-Dupree, Janet et Dupree, Pat – Wiley Publishing Inc., Hoboken, 2007

A life of repentance under a human’s rule:Notes on their surprisingly forgiving temperament. Clawthorne, Lilith – Owl House Free Press, Bonesborough, 50 AB

Commentary on Nicoló Machiavelli’s complete works. of the Construction track, Mattholomule – Human Appreciation Society’s journal; Hexside Publications, Bonesborough, 50 AB

HOOT. Hooty, Hooty – Hoot, Hooty, ????AH

NOTES:

1 - As to not interfere with the experiments and not face backlash from the interviewees, other than the subject herself, it is asked of the reader to deny any attempts by the subject to gain access to the present paper. We urge the reader to show both scientific solidarity and sense of humor.

2 - It should be noted that the subject seemed particularly adamant as to the importance of this particular item, leading to the belief that these “chicken tendies” are vital for human subsistence.

[mobappdevelopmentcompany]

Step-by-step Guidance on How to Proceed from an App Idea to a Prototype!

The journey from app ideation to prototyping - checking the relevance of the app idea before jump-starting the app development process - is one of the most crucial milestones for crafting an impeccable application. The reasons are:

App owners get a better perspective about the purpose of the proposed app and its target audience.

It helps in keeping the designer and the app owner on the same wavelength regarding the app design and ensures that the idea is implemented as intended.

It helps in identifying and resolving the potential usability problems.

It provides a competitive advantage while you pitch your app to potential investors.

However, to successfully prototype an app, you must be aware of the right steps. So, I have penned down the key steps involved in prototyping an application.

App Ideation to Prototyping: Key Steps

Pre-prototyping Stages

Prior to prototyping, check whether your app idea is financially promising and technically feasible.

Defining the Objective

The crucial questions concerning app ideation that should be answered during this stage are:

What’s the app’s objective?

Does the app fulfill any specific consumer/business requirements?

So, the very first step is capturing the app idea and visually representing it on a piece of paper. Paper prototyping should be kept simple without using any colors, or art and should include only a rough list of the doodles or features of the UI of the envisioned app. This is a rough visualization of the app idea that will be recreated as well as refined into digital format during the later stages.

Mobile Market Analysis

For validating the effectiveness of your concept, one should conduct a mobile market analysis for understanding the following particulars:

The present demand for the proposed application

The upsides and downsides of existing apps that target the same set of audience

This stage determines whether the idea is effective, is capable of competing with similar apps existing in the market and whether the app launch timings are suitable for its success.

Creating Relevant testing Personas

The next step is to create relevant types of personas for subsequent testing processes. These personas represent the preferences, predicted behavior, values, etc. of the would-be app users.

Prototyping Stages

Wireframing

A wireframe is a simplified, low fidelity outline of the proposed end-product comprising of words, lines, boxes, and even descriptions. It is simply the structure of the app designed by first formulating the requirements. User flows (the sequence of actions needed by the end-user for reaching their destination) are created for every major feature of the app. Wireframes are created either on paper or using the graphics editor software. Check out the key steps.

Design positive workflows: Conduct a rough mock-up for each screen, using tools like Sketch, Figma, Adobe, Balsamiq, or Illustrator. Thereafter, organize the screens into flows by adding arrows and comments for example – Click the button ‘A’ for opening screen ‘B’.

Add error screens: When the end-users fail to achieve their objective, error screens inform them about the occurrence of an error or the failure of an action.

Static Prototype: Creation and Testing

Now, develop a static prototype based on the outcome of wireframing. This stage can be executed alongside wireframing as well. Its prime intention is to establish and display the transitions amongst app pages.

The next step is conducting the A/B testing of this prototype. It involves creating interactive prototypes and sharing them with software industry veterans, volunteering individuals, and various personas that represent the app’s target audience. User testing helps in receiving feedback on the app’s crucial usability aspects such as:

Is there any element hampering the app’s functionality?

Are the UI element texts easily understandable?

Are the users able to conveniently navigate through the interface layout?

Can the end-users effectively use the UI to execute intended actions?

Prototyping helps the investors get a real view and feel of the product. It allows the testers to get an idea about the app’s usability, and the developers to be well-versed with the intended UX prior to finalizing the design.

Revamping the Prototype

This stage involves resolving the flaws detected and revamping the app based on the testers’ feedback. This ensures that the app’s functioning is intuitive and convenient, and the app becomes more attractive to potential end-users in the future. Once this stage is completed, the prototype comes back to the testing stage and this cycle goes on till satisfactory outcomes are achieved.

Finalizing the Design

Once all parties approve of the prototype, the app’s UI design is finalized. This includes finalizing the app idea, the shape of buttons, etc., and achieving a consensus on the use of colors. After the design creation process is completed, testing is conducted for checking the validity of the selected UI solutions and the appearance of the visual elements.

Product Demo

Now, it’s time to combine screens into a prototype; either a clickable one or one with arrows; for demonstrating it to the clients or potential investors. Remember to be transparent with them about whether the prototype is the actual functioning product or not. The key points to highlight in the demo meeting are:

Clarity about the proposed application

The reason why it’s a profitable investment option

A pitch that displays the business model, problem, and solution

The app’s prototype to make them walk through the future app.

After the demo, the customers would wish to make certain changes. These requested changes should be executed at the earliest and arrange for another demo. Once, the clients are satisfied, the finalized user flows are handed over to the developers for preparing the cost estimate.

Bottomline

Prototyping is undoubtedly a crucial aspect of the project planning stage and app creators shouldn’t ignore its importance.

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[wildlyminiaturesandwich]

🏠 Tiny Living Stuff Pack Review 🏠

Thank you to the EA Game Changer Program for providing me with the opportunity to play with Tiny Living Stuff early!

I didn’t have a lot of time to play around with this pack because I had some real life obligations during the early access time frame and the embargo time was once again at a ridiculous hour of the morning for me (don’t get me started on that mess), but here’s what I did learn about the new Tiny Living Stuff Pack.

I feel like I need to say straight away that this is my favourite stuff pack so far. The reason I feel the need to say that is because when I sat down to go through the notes I’d made during early access and type up this review, the more I got into it, the more it started to sound... aggressively ranty 😬

I was going to try to tone it down a bit, but honestly there are already so many reviews out there that gloss over the glaring bugs that I figured I might as well just leave it. It’s my honest opinion of the pack, and what’s the point of doing a review if I’m not giving my honest opinion, no matter how ranty? lol

I’m gonna put this under a cut, because spoilers.

— What I loved —

🏠 Create-a-Sim:

I’ve been saying for a long time we need more comfy casual clothing for our sims and with this pack we finally got some! LOOK AT THOSE JAMMIES!

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting any CAS items with this pack, but we got some amazing clothing that I will no doubt use on literally every sim I make lol

The hairs are good too, and more options are always appreciated, however I honestly feel like we already have different variations of most of them.

The best part about the hairs is that every single one of them has been made available for kids and toddlers! Apparently one of the gurus found a quick and cost effective way to convert hairs, so hopefully we’ll see this happen more and more with each future pack!

🏠  Buy Mode:

The Buy Mode objects are 100% the star of this pack for me. I don’t think there is a single thing in the buy catalogue of this pack that I didn’t absolutely adore! Some of the objects have issues — and I’ll get into that in a bit — but overall I love, love, LOVE the general concept of everything.

[click for larger]

The objects in this pack were based off the Scandinavian concept of Hygge and I really think they hit the nail on the head! Everything feels so cozy and comfy, with a little hint of Ikea to the furniture and I just... I can’t even really put into words how much I love it all. I honestly can’t remember a single previous pack (expansion, game or stuff) where I have loved every item in the buy catalogue, there’s usually always something that’s like “Meh” or “I don’t like this at all” to me, but the objects in this pack are 10/10.

I also love that they combined so many things. Like the murphy bed with the couch on the front (though I do wish we were also given that couch as a separate couch as well) and the TV unit that’s also a bookcase AND a stereo. And I really appreciate that they went back and redid some of the old book ends to make them functional bookcases. 

— What I didn’t love —

🏠 Create-A-Sim:

I say it with every pack and I’m going to continue to say it even if no one is listening...

WHERE ARE THE KIDS, TODDLERS AND ELDERS CAS ITEMS!?

I know the kids and toddlers got some hairs but that doesn’t make up for the serious lack of CAS content that every age range besides young adults has and it’s getting really hard to make unique sims when there isn’t enough content to choose from.

🏠 Build Mode:

For a pack dedicated to Tiny Living, I was really disappointed to see literally only one door in the build catalogue. ONE. I was expecting some small windows, maybe some sliding doors, but nope; just one door. Hell I would have even been happy to have less CAS stuff in exchange for some build stuff!

I get why they haven’t added bunk beds and spiral stairs yet, those are a lot of work and I’m ok with waiting until they perfect them BUT this would have been the perfect pack to add ladders. We already have ladders in game that are fully animated (pool and island living ladders) it really wouldn’t take that much work to make ladders work between floors. I HATE the idea of having to put stairs outside in tiny builds and ladders are the ultimate in space saving “technology"; I feel like the team really dropped the ball on that one.

🏠 Murphy Beds:

Listen, I love the concept of the murphy beds and the design of them looks really cool but I can’t see myself using them at all as they are currently.

I was almost immediately disappointed with them when I realised they were remote controlled. I know that it makes it easier for the Sims Team so they don’t have to work so hard to animate them, but I really wanted sims to pull them down by hand. The reason I wanted murphy beds in the game was because they would fit better with small apartments and homes of sims who don’t have a lot of money, and to me a remote controlled murphy bed sounds incredibly expensive. 

Oh but don’t worry, because apparently the remote control is invisible?

Now, the version of the game that the Gurus were using for the stream didn’t have invisible remotes BUT they use a dev build of the game that isn’t the same as ours, and many other Game Changers are also saying its invisible for them too, so I dunno what happened but that’s just one of the things that needs to be fixed.

The other issue, which is the biggest deal breaker for me, is that the damn things constantly break! And I do mean CONSTANTLY. You know how when you buy a cheap stereo or sink it’ll last a few days/uses before it breaks? Yeh, not the case for the murphy beds. They break instantly, and they break often.

I was REALLY looking forward to murphy beds being added to the game and I thought if there’s one thing I need to do above all else with this pack, it’s test out those glorious murphy beds! Well... I managed to play for roughly three sim days and here’s what happened during that time:

Bed 1 (never used before) got stuck on first use and squashed Sim 1

Bed 1 got stuck on second attempt and killed Sim 1

Bed 1 got stuck on third attempt and squashed Sim 2

Bought brand new bed

Bed 2 pulled down without issue for Sim 2

Bed 2 broke at 11pm while Sim 2 was sleeping and squashed Sim 2

Sim 2 refused to sleep for 3 hours out of fear while Sim 3 was able to sleep in broken, sparking bed for that time without issue because they weren’t in it when it squashed Sim 2

Sim 2 repaired bed while Sim 3 continued to sleep

After 3 hours Sim 2 went back to sleep and Bed 2 broke again almost immediately

Bought brand new bed. Again.

Bed 3 got stuck on first attempt and squashed Sim 2

Bed 3 got stuck on second attempt and squashed Sim 3

Bed 3 pulled down without issue on third attempt for Sim 3

Sims 2 and 3 slept for another 2 hours before Bed 3 started sparking again but didn’t squash them

Woke Sim 2 up to repair bed and immediately sent Sim 2 back to bed (the fear moodlet only happens if they get squashed but the bed can break without squashing them apparently?)

Bed 3 broke again 3.5 hours later and squashed both Sim 2 and 3

I rage quit.

For the so-called “Hero” object of this pack, this is just unacceptable. The percentage for breakage REALLY needs to be turned down because in my opinion they’re not usable as they are.

And even if it weren’t for all the bugs, I probably still wouldn’t use them in tiny homes because I don’t think they’re space saving at all. They take up exactly the same amount of space as normal beds do; 6 tiles. You can’t put anything in front of them or around them if you want them to be functional on both sides, and you can’t even put dangling lights above them because I guess, realistically, the bed would hit them on the way down?

It’s especially annoying with the murphy bed that has the couch attached. It would have been really nice to add a small coffee table or ottoman in front of it but you can’t because then your sims won’t be able to use the bed. I really wish they had have made at least the little round coffee table and the ottoman from this pack inventory-able. Sims could have them out during the day, and throw them in their inventory when they need to use the bed at night, then place them back down in the morning when they wake up.

I think it’s this aspect — not being able to put things around/in front of the murphy beds — that actually annoys the most; the bugs will probably be fixed eventually but I can’t see this ever changing. I spent most of the three days we had for early access trying to work out how to fit a murphy bed into a 32 tile micro home without having it just sitting in the middle of an empty room and let me tell you, it’s not worth the frustration.

— The Verdict —

🏠 7/10 Would go Tiny again

As I said, this is my favourite stuff pack so far and I will get a lot of use out of the CAS and Buy stuff, but because of all the things I mentioned above I can’t give it a 10/10.

I do love the content of this pack, but right now I’m getting kind of fed up with the issues that keep happening with every pack lately. It’s all stuff that should have been caught by QA testing, stuff that is glaringly obvious to the average player, and stuff that would have only taken two minutes of gameplay to find out was a problem. I don’t know who tests these packs, but whoever it is needs to step up their game in a big way.

Overall I really do love the pack, but some major aspects fell a little flat for me. And the fact that that’s not at all a surprise, and that this feeling of “I like it, but...” has become the norm with new packs is really quite sad.

If you have questions about Tiny Living Stuff, feel free to drop an ask in my box, anon will be on right up until the release 😊