#DIY computer fixes

[techforzone]

How to restart an HP laptop: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners

Is your computer or laptop screen acting up, frustrating your work and entertainment? Before rushing to a repair shop, take a moment to explore these troubleshooting steps which can potentially help you fix the issue yourself. From simply restarting your device to checking for loose cables, updating video drivers, and even addressing dead pixels, this comprehensive guide offers valuable solutions. Whether it's a hardware glitch or a software issue, this article provides insight and practical advice to help you tackle the problem head-on. Keep reading to equip yourself with the knowledge to troubleshoot and potentially resolve your computer or laptop screen issues.

How to Fix a Broken Computer or Laptop Screen

Dealing with a broken computer or laptop screen can be incredibly frustrating, especially when you rely on your device for work, studies, or entertainment. Before you head to the store or call a repair technician, there are several troubleshooting steps you can try to potentially fix the screen yourself. Follow these steps and stop once you see improvement; if the problem recurs, simply return to the list and try the remaining fixes.

Restart Your computer or Laptop

Restarting should be your first step, as it is quick and often effective. Your screen might not be working due to a simple operating system glitch that a reboot can resolve. Hold down the power button and restart Laptop your machine to see if the issue persists.

Examine and Clean the Keyboard and Screen Areas

Dust and debris can accumulate in the keyboard area and screen hinges, potentially causing functional issues. Thoroughly clean these areas, especially if your laptop uses a visible latch mechanism. Use compressed air or a gentle brush to remove any particulates.

Close and Reopen the computer or Laptop

If your screen intermittently turns on and off, try closing and then reopening your device. This can indicate a bad lid sensor. Ensure you close the laptop completely, then open it again to see if the screen issue resolves.

Connect an External Monitor

If your laptop screen is entirely black, plug in an external monitor. If the external monitor displays correctly, your issue is likely with the laptop screen itself, not the system. If the external monitor also remains blank, the computer or laptop may be in sleep or hibernation mode. Ensure the device is powered on and connected to a power source.

Update Your Video Card Drivers

Screens with visual defects but not entirely black could be suffering from outdated or malfunctioning video drivers. Access the settings of your computer or laptop and check for any available updates for your video card drivers. Installing the latest updates could fix the problem.

Fix Dead Pixels

Dead or stuck pixels can create tiny but noticeable issues. Specialized apps can help by cycling through colors rapidly or generating digital snow to stimulate the affected pixels. Run these apps to see if they revive the unresponsive pixels on your screen.

Fix Screen Burn-In

Old images "ghosted" onto your screen could indicate screen burn-in. You can reduce or eliminate this issue by running a white screen saver or using apps designed to remove burn-in. These methods often involve displaying a solid white screen for an extended period to clear the remnants of old images.

Check Screen and Backlight Connections

If you have technical skills and are comfortable disassembling your computer or Laptop parts, you can check the screen and backlight connectors. Carefully remove the bezel or hinge covers to access the cables, ensuring all connections are secure. Look out for any crimped or broken cables that might need replacement.

Replace the Screen

If none of the previous steps work, replacing the screen might be your only option. Large black or colored bars, black holes, or running colors generally indicate irreparable damage. A cracked screen also suggests the need for replacement. You can find replacement screens online or through the manufacturer; however, professional installation might be necessary if you need clarification.

How to fix a cracked Computer or Laptop without replacing

If your broken computer or laptop screen is cracked, it's essential to acknowledge that such physical damage typically can't be repaired; replacement is the only viable solution. For those with a knack for electronics, purchasing a replacement screen from a retailer like Amazon and personally undertaking the replacement can be cost-effective. However, this DIY route is only recommended if you're confident in your electronic repair skills. It involves delicate procedures like disconnecting and reconnecting fragile connectors and handling sensitive electronic components. If done incorrectly, you could cause further damage. Therefore, it's crucial to understand the potential risks and seek professional help if you need clarification on the repair process.

It may not be a screen problem.

When your Laptop's screen doesn't display anything, it's tempting to assume the screen itself is the culprit. However, various factors could be responsible. Understanding these factors gives you a sense of control over the situation.

Firstly, check if the screen is indeed broken. It might be dead if the Laptop doesn't respond when pressing the power button. Ensure it's fully charged and try again. Specific steps apply to external monitors. Refer to guides on testing a computer monitor that isn't working, as the issue might not be with the monitor itself.

If the laptop screen remains black, watch as you power it on. Hearing the Laptop and seeing error messages indicate a different problem. Consult resources on how to fix startup errors, such as "How to Fix Errors Seen During the Computer Startup Process."

Conversely, if no sounds or lights are coming from the Laptop, even when plugged in, the issue might be related to a faulty battery or power connection. In such cases, investigate power supply issues or consider battery replacement. Following these steps, you can accurately diagnose and resolve the problem without immediately blaming the screen.

A physically broken laptop screen is typically due to physical damage caused by drops or objects impacting the screen. Small particles like sand can get between the keyboard and the screen, leading to significant damage. However, not all screen issues result from physical trauma.

Other factors that can cause a laptop screen to malfunction include:

Stuck Pixels: Small areas of the screen stuck on one color.

Screen Burn: Permanent discoloration from static images.

Malfunctioning Backlight: Resulting in a dim or dark screen.

Cable and Connector Problems: Loose or damaged internal connections.

Outdated Drivers: Software issues that impact screen performance.

Conclusion

Fixing a broken or malfunctioning computer or laptop screen requires a mix of troubleshooting, patience, and, sometimes, technical skills. Patience is critical in these situations, helping you stay calm and composed as you work through the steps. Whether your screen suffers from software glitches, hardware issues, or physical damage, the steps outlined can help you identify and resolve these problems. However, severe physical damage, like a cracked screen, usually requires replacement. Consider your comfort level with technical tasks before attempting repairs, and do not hesitate to seek professional assistance.

FAQ

How much does it typically cost to replace a laptop screen?

The cost can vary widely depending on the make and model of your Laptop. On average, replacement screens can cost between 

Can I use my Laptop with an external monitor if the screen is broken?

Yes, as long as the Laptop is functioning, you can connect it to an external monitor using an HDMI, VGA, or DisplayPort cable. This is a temporary or long-term solution, depending on your preference.

Is it difficult to replace a laptop screen?

The difficulty level depends on your laptop model and your comfort with electronic repairs. Many guides and video tutorials are available online, yet the process involves delicate handling of small components.

What should I do if my screen has flickering issues?

Flickering can be caused by loose cables, outdated drivers, or hardware issues. Check and secure all screen connections, update your video drivers, and test with an external monitor to isolate the problem.

Are there risks to replacing a laptop screen myself?

Yes, incorrect handling can cause further damage to your Laptop. Common risks include damaging internal cables, mishandling the delicate LCD, or static electricity damage. Always proceed with caution and consult detailed guides.

[tim-it]

"Troubleshooting 'No Boot' Issue: Laptop Won't Start? Laptop Won't Boot...

[secretgamergirl]

How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

[indestinatus]

The silent art of gif making

The gif above has 32 layers plus 6 that aren't shown because this is part of a larger edit. I wanted to share it to give everyone a glimpse of the art of gif making and how long it usually takes for me to make something like this. This one took me about an hour and a half but only because I couldn't get the shade of blue right.

I use Adobe Photoshop 2021 and my computer doesn't have a large memory space (I don't know what to call it) so usually most of psds get deleted because I'm too lazy to get a hard drive. It doesn't really bother me that much because I like the art so when it's done, it's done. Off to somewhere else it goes.

Here are the layers:

Everything is neat and organized in folders because I like it that way. I prefer to edit it in timeline but others edit each frame. There's a layer not shown (Layer 4 is not visible) and it's the vector art. Here it is:

Now it is visible. I don't plan to make this a tutorial, but if you're interested I'd love to share a few tricks about it. I'm pretty new to the colors in gifmaking but the rest is simple to understand. Here, I just want to show how much work it takes to make it.

I opened Group 2 and here's the base gif. I already sharpened and sized it correctly but that's about it. Let's open the base coloring next.

Yay! Now it looks pretty! The edits are in Portuguese but it doesn't matter. There's a silent art of adding layers depending on how you want the gif to look but you get used to it. The order matters and you can add multiple layers of the same thing (for eg. multiple layers of levels or curves or exposure).

This was pretty much my first experiment with coloring so I don't know what I'm doing (this happens a lot with any art form but gifmaking exceeds in DIYing your way to the finished product) but I didn't want to mess up his hair, that's why the blue color is like that. Blue is easy to work with because there's little on the skin (different from red and yellow but that's color theory). I painted the layers like that and put it on screen, now let's correct how the rest looks.

I was stuck trying to get the right teal shade of blue so yes, those are 10 layers of selective color mostly on cyan blue. We fixed his hair (yay!) we could've probably fixed the blue on his neck too but I was lazy. This is close to what I wanted so let's roll with that.

BUT I wanted his freckles to show, so let's edit a little bit more. Now his hair is more vibrant and his skin has red tones, which accentuates the blues and his eyes (exactly what I wanted!). That lost Layer 2 was me trying to fix some shadows in the background but in the end, it didn't make such a difference.

This was part of an edit, so let's add the graphics and also edit them so they're the right shade of blue and the correct size. A few gradient maps and a dozen font tests later, it appears to be done! Here it is:

Please reblog gifsets on tumblr. We gifmakers really enjoy doing what we do (otherwise we wouldn't be here) but it takes so long, you wouldn't imagine. Tumblr is the main website used for gif making and honestly, we have nowhere to go but share our art here. This was only to show how long it takes but if you're new and want to get into the art of gif making, there are a lot of really cool resource blogs in here. And my ask box is always open! Sending gifmakers all my love.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Heard this morning (27 March, 2023) A transcript for this piece is not yet up. They're usually up in a couple of days.

~3 minute listen.

This one right-to-repair law got through in just one state, because the lawmaker who introduced it narrowed its focus down from "The right of everybody to repair anything" (too many businesses to lobby against that) to "the right of wheelchair users to repair their own wheelchairs."

On the one hand it's great. On the other hand, it's a reminder of how marginalized we are in society.

Next thing to fight for: the right of farmers to repair their own farm equipment.

One state's gotten started. Forty-nine to go...

Transcript is now up. I've put the full thing under the cut.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Somewhere on your list of life's annoyances is probably this - manufacturers who won't let customers fix products themselves. Some states are pushing back with right-to-repair laws. Andrew Kenney from Colorado Public Radio visited with one of the first people to use a new right-to-repair law for powered wheelchairs.

(SOUNDBITE OF WHEELCHAIR WHIRRING)

ANDREW KENNEY, BYLINE: Bruce Goguen, who's 68, has used his powered wheelchair for so long that it feels like an extension of himself. He has multiple sclerosis, which affects his speech.

BRUCE GOGUEN: I just think of it as legs, as being my legs.

KENNEY: And that means when he got a new chair last year, every detail had to be right, like the speed of its different modes. His wife, Robin Bolduc, says each one of those adjustments required a visit from an authorized technician. It took weeks.

ROBIN BOLDUC: We would have to call someone, make an appointment, have them come out and say, gee, I'd like to change it so we're walking just a little bit faster.

KENNEY: On one of those visits, Robin realized that the technician wasn't using some specialized device to change the settings. It was a smartphone app. She even found it on the App Store, but it was only available for authorized users.

BOLDUC: Well, I want the app. And he was like, you can't have the app. But I want the app.

KENNEY: That would've been the end of the road, except that Robin and Bruce knew that Colorado's new wheelchair right-to-repair to repair law had just gone into effect. Representative Brianna Titone is the sponsor of the new law. Back in 2021, she originally proposed a much broader bill that would've applied to computers, cellphones and more. That meant an uphill fight against lobbyists for everything from hospitals to tech giants.

BRIANNA TITONE: So I did not win that fight. I lost that fight pretty bad. So that's why the following year, we pared it back to the people who really deserve to have this right. And that were the people who were in wheelchairs.

TITONE: The narrower, wheelchair-focused law passed the legislature last year with the help of advocates like Bruce and Robin. Once it went into effect on New Year's Day, Robin called the manufacturer to demand access to their app.

BOLDUC: They were not prepared. Right. Which - understandably, we're the only state. And it was day one, right? So they were not prepared.

KENNEY: In a committee hearing last year, Tonya Hammatt of National Seating and Mobility, a wheelchair vendor, warned state lawmakers that power wheelchairs are too complex for DIY jobs.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TONYA HAMMATT: This bill will allow anyone to perform complex repairs to power wheelchairs, which may lead to negative outcomes for the end user.

KENNEY: But after Robin showed Bruce's wheelchair's maker the text of the law, they agreed, sending out two staffers to get the family set up with the internal software.

BOLDUC: They gave me the code to get into the app. We played around. We programmed.

KENNEY: The couple have been tweaking the wheelchair's different modes, searching for the perfect speed for Robin to jog alongside Bruce or the right settings for a steep walking trail.

GOGUEN: It's wonderful. It's very wonderful.

KENNEY: And their success could have broader effects. They've been told the manufacturer is working on a public-facing app for everyone else who wants to use it. The company didn't respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile, right-to-repair laws are gaining momentum around the country, says Kevin O'Reilly of the advocacy group PIRG.

KEVIN O'REILLY: We think that this first bill was the crack in the dam that we needed.

KENNEY: That includes a new bill from Representative Titone that guarantees similar rights for farmers to repair their increasingly high-tech tractors and other equipment. It's poised to clear the state legislature in a matter of weeks. For NPR News, I'm Andrew Kenney.

(SOUNDBITE OF EDAPOLLO'S "BY THE RIVER")

[allie-leth]

Okay so being the cool Domme goth maker DIY "Fuck it, i'll figure it out and do it myself" type is cool and all, and I'm enjoying that life...

But also, I don't WANT to replace the leaking radiator hose on my car. I want someone to come fix it for me. I wanna be the cute taken care of subby little thing 😭

But... I'm tired of cars being the only 'black box' area that I'm scared of for absolutely no reason. I can rebuild a computer, build and fix software, build pretty much anything from circuit, make cute as fuck outfits, play piano... All things I taught myself... So, fuck it, we learn.

[commodorez]

I absolutely adore the passion you have when you're speaking about this old tech hehehe

Well thank you!

This has been my hobby of choice for about 20 years now, I'm in it because I enjoy it. Why take half-measures with what you love to do?

If this is the sort of thing you enjoy as well, and you want to interact with more of the vintage computer enthusiast community, you can always come hang out with the rest of the Retrotech Crew on Discord.

We spend our time talking about pre-Y2K computers and other sorts of technology. Lots of the discussion pertains to people fixing stuff, programming for old machines, or playing games. Minicomputers, micros, game systems, televisions, associated ephemera, and the community events where these machines are celebrated are all common points of discussion. Meanwhile, others are homebrewing their own computers using processors of yore to get the 1970s DIY experience (it's where I built my 6502 homebrew: the Cactus).

I always think about the sort of informal space that I wanted when I was first getting into the hobby, when the forums I was traversing felt too daunting to a newcomer who didn't know all that much like myself. Hopefully it's fulfilling its purpose of being a good place for folks to interact and share in that enjoyment, regardless of experience level. Many of the earlier members all came from here on tumblr initially, after which we started a Skype group chat, which migrated to Discord in 2017. Since then we've picked up folks from many other circles of the community at large, so I hope that means we're doing something right.

[carionto]

I heard in the canteen that the humans once used a few antique combustion engines to start one of their portable stars. Any truth to the rumor?

Ah jeez, that was one hell of a day for that guy.

Yes and no. Where do I even being...

Okay. So this place up in Greenland called, uh... I'm gonna butcher this so bad, Hjeilhornhentrotnenheim, has an engineering museum, right? Right, and the guy in charge, his name is, ah fuck this is gonna be bad too ..., Hansinguaq Bjerresvontsgaardsen (I'm just gonna call him Hans from now on because uh yeah, no), collects all the things not fit for display in his personal transport ship. He's essentially converted it into his private mobile museum.

Not long after we established diplomatic channels and preliminary trade routes, Hans eagerly went off on his own to visit Alien equivalents to museums and such. Spent a solid three weeks traveling, sight-seeing, and adding things to his collection.

During a stop on the outer reaches of Coalition space his computer blue screened and forcibly shut down the reactor and pretty much wiped his communication array address book among other less relevant components. And no, I have no clue why he went so far out. He's 46, midlife crisis is my guess, telling him to go out on daring adventures or whatever. Anyway, he couldn't restart the fusion reactor while the inhibitor rod chambers were open, they open and shoot out the star canceler in an emergency shutdown, but one was stuck with the rod half-way in, so Hans had to manually open the reactor and fix it by hand.

Problem is, his transport ship, the Veritable Greenhorn, is fairly big, and the reactor's outer diameter was about 37 meters. Even in zero-g that's a lot of mass for one person to move, not to mention how much force you'd need to pry out a hyper dense metal alloy rod from a gate meant to withstand the pressure of a star right next to it. But he did have a lot mechanical power at his disposal, it just needed to be... rearranged.

Now, he did have backup generators that quietly hum in the background like on every Human vessel, but these are passive and nowhere near enough to charge the hyperdrive even if he could tell it where to go, let alone power machinery to counter a thousand ton jammed deadbolt. He needed something that had a kick to it, something you could really rev beyond its limits just long enough. He needed his V6s and V8s.

After almost two days of DIY engineering details I won't bore you with because I fell asleep when he explained them himself, Hans fired up the engines. It was a very tedious five hours of the engines rythmically tugging the deadbolt a tenth of a milimeter open and what is basically a massive jackhammer pummeling the rod back in. At one point he ran out of gas and was forced to sacrifice his alcohol collection.

Suffice to say it barely worked, all of the machinery he cobbled together became practically unusable, but it worked and he was able to restart the fusion reactor.

Oh, he didn't come home or anything by the way. Like I guess, midlife crisis. If anything, success has made him think nothing can get in the way of his Galactic exploration quest.

So that's the story. No, he didn't use combustion engines to start the reactor or anything, but lacking any other means to fix a problem I honestly didn't know could happen, the petrol guzzlers gave him the right kind of horsepower.

By the way, if you get a chance to tour the Veritable Greenhorn, I'd recommend it. I can't even begin to describe how that contraption looks, it's one of the main displays. I guarantee it's the most specific purpose built and rough pieces of Human engineering you will ever see.

[coyoteprince]

Oh my God I (barely) survived moving. My house is very cute and I'm going to turn it into an autumnal gay den of sin, tho I'm having a really hard time with being overwhelmed by Too much unfamiliarity right now. Autism brain has stink lines and my hip joints have really gotten really bad from the exhaustion of moving. Been having some moments where I knew I would benefit more from a wheelchair rather than cane.

My new house is a midcentury that has had terrible sloppy landlord diy fixes all over, but it has some New England influence, a huge all seasons room, and plenty space for us. I'm turning the dining room into a Victorian tea parlor/library, and the sun room is becoming a flex space of a second floor-seated living room/witchcraft space/area where I ink comic & other traditional art. It's going to take a long, long time to get her where we want but I have the determination.

We've dubbed her Pumpkin House and will be influencing white pumpkins & the headless horseman through her design. Both myself and the goblin have already experienced many paranormal things despite being here only a few days- all being positive, and many important things weirdly landing on Halloween.

Tomorrow, Samhain, we will be thanking the house and doing a ritualistic deep clean. I'm making the majority of the cleaning products myself and have made her a custom scent blend to put in the supplies, to act as a spell as well as invoke the feeling of mystery & comfort: lavender, fir needle, frankincense, amber, and a touch of cinnamon ❤️

It's going to take me a minute to get back on my feet. Between the physical toll moving took on my body, the psychological effects from autism brain freaking out at Too Many New Thing, my only computer suddenly dying, and new responsibilities to grapple, both my body AND my wallet is completely wore out... but once I recover I know this house will foster a lot of creative growth. For now, I sow.

If you like Widderwood/my art and want to show some financial support while we deal with our fresh start, throwing me a Kofi would be much appreciated <3

[kunaigirl]

I haven't drawn Chester in a while, so I wanted to fix that! I wanted to draw him chillin' on his ancient computer in his trailer/mobile home, while sporting the DIY sweatshirt he made! I also decided to make two versions, one with and one without his clown make up!

Some lore: He originally made that shirt back when he first became a clown, and it was a prototype for what his original costume look was going to be! He obviously ended up going in a totally different direction, but he still kept it because it was still a pretty cool sweat shirt to wear casually outside of work! That's also why it looks messier than the suit he current preforms in. He was less experienced when he made it.

[invaderhogtwopointohno]

RebelCaptain Week 2024

RebelCaptain Week 2024

Day Four: Stars

"Why Stardust?" he asked. The Airbnb was made of glass so they were able to lie in bed, staring through the ceiling at the sky. The woods had offered them a really nice private little getaway before all of the chaos of the next few days.

"What?" Jyn asked, looking at Cassian.

He was turning her hand over and over in his, looking at the sky.

"Why does your father call you Stardust?"

She smiled at him, looking back at the sky.

"It's the scientist in him, all matter in the universe is made up of the same elements- we are made up of the same material that makes up stars- so he's always called me Stardust."

"Galen Erso- surprise romantic."

She smiled and looked at him.

"Your dad is too- I realized," she said and he looked at her.

"My dad? A romantic?"

She pulled her phone from the sidetable and showed him. "Look, he has been sending me articles about how to repair my own car and DIY house projects. He said he doesn't want me to pay for anything that I can fix myself," she said and he sighed, looking at the phone. That sounded like his dad.

"How is that romantic?" Cassian asked, looking at all of the texts. His dad was always sending him random articles about computer or car parts to fix himself.

"I think it's sweet that he is looking out for me in his weird dad way. My dad too- you know that he made me memorize the periodic table and learn everything there was to know about bombs when he found out that I was going into the military?"

Jyn smiled, looking at the stars and shaking her head.

"Oh, dad's are so strange..." she whispered and he leaned in, kissing her forehead and then pressing his cheek against it, wrapping his arms around her.

"Papa's getting really emotional now that we're getting married next week," she said, and he nodded.

"My dad is thrilled but Kay keeps asking me if I want to back out."

She sighed dramatically. The fiancee and the best friend rarely got along but their particularly antagonistic relationship was on another level. She had been forced to even invite Kay to the wedding because he was the best man. She hugged Cassian, closing her eyes and sighing.

"Stardust... it's a good name... I like it..." Cassian said, drifting off to sleep and she held onto him, looking at the stars overhead.

[apoptoses]

♜ Interior decorating aesthetic (for Daniel)

☹ Response to a leaky faucet or other household problem (for Armand)

♜ Interior decorating aesthetic (for Daniel)

God this one is hard because it raises so many questions for me like- did Daniel live alone at the time he met Louis? Did he have roommates? He spent years in hotels, and then lived with Armand, and did he have any input on the decor when they were living together? Did he even care that much?

We know that he loved Night Island, that the mix of old and new there was gorgeous, that his room had renaissance paintings alongside modern decor. That he loved luxury. And to an extent I think that's still true, that he likes having nice, interesting things around and isn't like and HGTV trends guy lol

But part of me also thinks about Armand's collecting stuff phase and how he literally filled some apartments to the brim with his computers. How Daniel was probably too exhausted to clean up after their messes most of the time. And like how people who have lived in hoarding situations (or just messy spaces in general) come out preferring minimalism, as little clutter as possible on surfaces and few knick knacks.

And I think Daniel would be somewhere in the middle. All vampires have an attachment to the time they were turned, so he's got a retro-eclectic vibe going in his spaces with some 80s inspired pieces. He probably still leaves his shit laying around like his clothes and half-read books but Trinity Gate and Auvergne have cleaning staff to take care of that. For better or worse he grew up in the era of wall to wall carpet and still prefers that over a hardwood floor. And I see him as a physical media kind of guy- he's got a sick vinyl collection, he still gets VHS tapes and DVDs of movies he liked, his media is pretty organized and nicely displayed. Get a nice comfy chair in there and he's set.

His craft space is a fucking wreck though lol But that's okay because he can close that door and pretend that mess doesn't exist when he's not in there.

☹ Response to a leaky faucet or other household problem (for Armand)

Oh lord in DM era it's one of three options:

Demand Daniel go to the hardware store with him so they can experiment with fixing it themselves (Daniel's least favorite option, there's bound to be cussing and at least three trips back to the store even though Armand can afford to buy literally every fucking possible thing needed in one trip)

Call a repair service and pay double for the middle of the night handyman work, while he sits and stares and creeps the guy out with his observation (Daniel's preferred option, he tips the workers extra for dealing with Armand's questions)

Say fuck it and rent a new place to live (inevitable, sometimes, when the DIY option goes very very wrong and they wind up with severe water damage that threatens the safety of the residents below them, oops)

Now at Trinity Gate? Unfortunately I think Benji's the mature adult in that household, he's got task rabbit loaded and ready to hire someone before the problem can get out of control. Because god knows Louis can't maintain a home, and frankly someone's gotta protect the peace and keep Daniel and Armand from bickering all night again about whose fault it is that the dish washer broke ("We don't even use fucking dishes, Armand, what did you put in there??" is NOT when he needs in the background he's trying to record a podcast tyvm)

[xochitai]

Was thinking of sapphic Lotura again the other night and ran into the question: would fem!Lotor be butch? [ramble below]

This section is partially inspired by a headcanon [or maybe it was a theory; I can't remember] post I saw on tumblr [which I tried to find to link here but I could not] because canon doesn't give us much to work with when it comes to civillian Galran culture. Gist of the post was sexual dimorphism in Galra and links to gender. So traits like being larger and/or more colorful are perceived as feminine [ex. Zethrid, Kolivan] and being smaller with fewer colors is perceived as masculine [ex. Lotor]. The original post has more detail and expands on how fem-/masc- ulinity tie into Galran society, but back to the point. Assuming fem!Lotor looks the same as canon!Lotor, viewed through this hc/theory, she would be perceived as masc. However, just because someone has fem/masc features doesn't mean they identify with that or want to dress in a way that "matches." So we are back to square one.

There was a drawing made by one of the people who worked on the show that featured the paladins, blade of marmora, and sincline squad at a restaurant[?] in winter. [I could probably look this up and find it to put here but I am lazy]. Lotor is walking in, wearing a beanie and puffy coat. Very typical winter clothes in typical winter colors. Not much to work with here. Next.

For this part, I know I have the pic already on my computer so I'll insert it here:

The mix of greys canon!L wears don't seem to be gendered. Whether dress or tunic/overcoat/leggings combo, there's an even mix of dark and light grey. None of the Galra here wear orange or blue, so can't really do anything with that. Lotor's waist cape does resemble what some of the male Galra are wearing, particularly the ones behind Blaytz on the stairs, but those are an over layer being bound by a belt. Similar shape, different construction. Don't really have anything else to go off of though so I will give 0.5 point to team masc.

In terms of actions, I will not lie to you dear reader, it's been a while since I watched the latter half of the show so my memory is fuzzy. Maybe there is some big thing I missed. I wouldn't know; I missed it. Anyways. Ik it's a bit of a stereotype but Lotor designs and builds things. Would it be so far fetched for Ladytor to be a diy/builder wife? With all her little projects? She says she's gonna renovate the space porch but gets distracted and designs a house for the cat and builds a robot.

I feel like I'm reaching the part where I'm grasping at straws. Clothing analysis can only do so much because Lotor wears ONE OUTFIT FOR HIS ENTIRE ADULT LIFE. Not even death can separate him from that damn armor. But does it matter? Do I need canon approval to draw fem!Lotor in dapper fits?

Deleted a little bit because I started to lose the plot. I guess the conclusion is: data inconclusive. Requires further discussion.

As always, hope this was legible enough. I fixed some spelling errors but that's about it. I'm not going through this again to clean up sentence structure.

+ can't remember how many total rambles i have. not sure if it is time for a ramble tag. i don't think anyone reads them enough to warrant one but idk.

[cookiekitkat8484]

dipper hcs

This is super long, like 2000 words super long because i have a huge hyperfixation and cringe culture is dead. he reminds me of me and my friends/family so i have a million ideas. split into topics for reading convenience

low 20s, autistic, bi + demi with a preference for women, ftm. I totally understand people disliking ftm dipper because of stan and mabel making fun of his masculinity and it would be shitty in canon but this is my post so i make the rules bitch and am pretending that never happened. None of this is ship stuff. I imagine him to basically look like the lovley art in this post.  

shares an apartment with mabel in portland, completely full of nerd memorabilia, mabels diys, a conspiracy corkboard, and arts & crafts materials 

works in a bar/arcade where wendy bartends, calls soos and fidds when he needs help fixing machines

pet ferret called pippin

started his own journal 

pacificas plus one to her prissy rich person events, sit in the corner and shit talk

carries around fidget toys, was too embarrassed till mabel convinced him (partially because his pens kept exploding everywhere)

has protective runes tattooed 

mabel talks about astrology to be annoying, is baited into getting mad and rambling about how modern astrology is fake and a scam every single time

nervous driver, doesnt have a car but is sometimes driven by mabel in her heavily adorned funmobile 

helps mabel dye her hair after a three am hair emergency, got really good and bleached pacificas (she refuses money from her parents after moving out) till she decided to chop it and grow it out natural, used to have the ultimate gossip sessions

joint problems and pain, god awful posture

one sided beef with all of mabels partners till they “prove themselves”

doesnt believe in cooking like he (mainly) used to not believe in laundry

punched someone for making fun of mabel, got beat up so mabel kicked their asses (thank you stan and wendy)

only social media is reddit, an instagram account made and run by pacifica, youtube, and a tumblr on nerd/mystery stuff 

only has tumblr bc candy convinced him in like 2014 then he succumbed to the brain rott, they're mutuals and make weird references no one else gets, personalises blog extensively via html/css, had a brief superwholock phase in 2015 (fight me)

coded mabels laptop into a custom 2000s esc blinged out hellscape she made in graphic design class, got her rgb stuff bc she likes rainbows and he thinks its funny

occasionally clashes with mabel bc shes sensory seeking and he gets sensory overload

pacifica takes him clothes shopping bc otherwise he will literally never buy new clothes, they sometimes go thrifting with mabel the thrift god

mildly dyslexic and in denial

needs glasses but usually wears contacts because he finds them annoying then forgets to take them out, wears glasses when he misses the grunkles

Sugar addict like mabel and their pantry shows it 

Best nerd shirt collection like that's all he wears

Gets into online arguments way too much for like no reason 

Mabel makes like ten different protective friendship bracelets with unicorn hair so he could have options, just wears all ten at once

uni

journalism major with a minor in computer science 

takes history, pure maths, and film units as electives 

member/helps run the clubs for DnD/DD&MD, MTG, Warhammer, and scifi & fantasy appreciation

founder and president of the uni cryptozoology, supernatural, aliens, and occult society

gets ford to proof read his writings/math and fidds his code

attends lectures for units hes not even enrolled in for fun

has gotten into multiple arguments with professors, including ones that dont even teach him 

has read theory (all people who’ve read theory are annoying including myself)

hobbies

goes to cons with mabel, she helps with (/mainly makes for him) matching cosplays which bring the joy of their childhood trick or treating

once met spock and kirks actors and got so excited he passed out so mabel took pics of him on the floor next to them and thinks its hysterical

DMs an online DnD/DD&MD and ttrpgs group

competes in MTG tournaments 

does karaoke night with mabel and the gals atleast once a month, sometimes brings pacifica 

goes to the renaissance fair with the squad where him, mabel, ford, and soos all dress up and get super into character with melony while wendy and stan take shrooms and go to watch the sword fighting 

listens to DnD podcasts 

ex band kid and still plays Sousaphone, often to mabels dismay 

obsessed with boardgames and hosts boardgame nights, always makes everyone play super overcomplicated ones then has to play monopoly when its stan and mabels choice

almost always wins boardgames, sometimes loses to ford (who is a sore loser lol)

has had risk games last multiple days once its only him and ford left

bonds with mabel painting figures (warhammer, dnd, the usual) with her and soos and embraces her covering hers in glitter and gems

goes ghost hunting, has a shit tone of real gear from ford and fidds and sometimes vlogs, quotes buzzfeed unsolved

secret AO3 account, caught grunkle stan writing dutches approves fics but both have sworn an oath of secrecy 

wendy taught him skateboarding, doesnt do tricks (uncoordinated as shit) but uses it as transport

broke bc he cant resist collectables 

made his own pc from scratch using parts he bought and custom ones made by fidds

goes to local band concerts with wendy and her gang including watching wendy play drums

Did debate in highschool, usually gets nervous doing public speaking but gets so invested he forgets

games 

loves all strategy and puzzle games

fav games include fallout 1&2, nethack, xcom, civ, FTL, and dwarf fortress

ford and fidds play games they used to play before the portal accident with him eg. zork, MUD1, rouge, star trek, colossal cave adventure, and mystery house

plays portal 2 with ford and sometimes mabel

plays baldurs gate with mabel and she spent five hours doing character customisation, he plays wizard and she plays bard and both are total stereotypes

plays lethal company and phasmophobia with mabel, soos, wendy, grenda, and candy (goes as expected) (lots of screaming)

BDG unravelled fan and grew up on matpat but cant play fnaf or ddlc bc giffany 

had a breakdown playing dark souls and started crying at 2am so mabel banned it permanently

spectacularly bad at rhythm games but will play with mabel anyway and she completely sweeps, esp in arcades and just dance

play bishi bashi together and have broken the machine before

really good at retro arcade games, shares strats with soos and remembers all the combos for everything, helps kids beat levels at work

gets ford to help optimise game stats/teams/strats with the POWER OF MATHS !!!, has on occasion coded algorithms to assist 

forced everyone to play among us constantly for like three months straight

member of mabel, candy, and grendas chaotic nightmare of a minecraft server, usually offline and generally regrets it when he joins, more of a terraria guy

undertale kid

ports/emulates games himself, esp retro console stuff like old fire emblem, Zelda, earthbound

in the ace attorney fandom  

runs a server for online friends he plays games with

shows/movies

does annual lotr (extended edition) marathons with ford, mabel drifts in and out of watching because snacks and that legolas and arwin are both a “total smash”

loves scifi, including classics like star trek, star wars, ext.

watches doctor who with mabel (shes a david tennant enjoyer) including the super old stuff 

goes to old scifi/horror/fantasy rerun marathons, wendy joins depending on the films

watches scifi and mecha anime with soos, sometimes ford and fidds join

loves evangelion, knows cruel angels thesis in japanese, lowkey a shinji kinnie and is bullied ruthlessly 

watches candys exquisite curation of 90s shoujo with her, mabel, and grenda, wont admit he gets super into it but has been caught doing sailor moon magical girl transformation poses 

never shuts the fuck up about theories and guesses the end of movies unless mabel smothers him with a pillow

hate watches conspiracy theory/ghost hunting shows with wendy bc theyre either laughably wrong or so close and totally missing the obvious, except this one random guy who was somehow spot on (like doug forcett in the good place) 

Made to watch all of twilight at a girls night because mabel (mostly) watched lotr, cant stop overthinking the insane lore implications which somehow get worse with every book fact mabel tells him (because what the fuck ???? the world building is batshit), him and candy keep periodically saying effervescent and bursting into hysterics to the others confusion

still quotes star wars bad lip readings with mabel

books

favs include hitchikers guide to the galaxy, discworld, lotr, do androids dream of electric sheep, earthsea, dune, and HP lovecraft esp cuthullu 

him and ford have both read the salmirilion and make it everyones problem

likes classic scifi and early cyberpunk, esp spec fic thats wacky or raises ethical questions to ponder with ford

loves sherlock homes and agatha christie, big who dunnit story fan

read good omens bc mabel likes the show (again, david tennant enjoyer) and its terry pratchet, tries to get her to read the book for ages and eventually she listens to the audiobook

music

likes lemon demon, TWERP, starbomb, NSP, tally hall, will wood, and other nerd bands 

owns spirit phone on vinyl, made ford listen and accidentally gave him flashbacks

can and will recite the entirety of the ultimate showdown of ultimate evil at the drop of a hat

went through a midwest emo phase, still listens to csh

listens to vocaloid with candy, went to a concert with the gals and everyone learnt the dances, mabel deccorated their light sticks 

always ends up belting (B)ABBA when drunk

Fav (B)ABBA songs are disco girl and under attack 

weezer defender, bullied by mabel and wendy

listens to math rock with ford while stan complains the time signatures and polyrhythms (though he’d never bother to learn the terms) give him a headache 

listens to game OSTs and chiptune stuff

mabel got him into musicals, knows the words to hamilton, bmc, and dear evan hansen, sing duets together

trans 

once forgot to take off a too small binder for like two days and fainted, mabel made him a custom one

short king, used to have hight dysphoria

mabel alters his pants bc mens trousers are evil for the transmasc gang

didnt shave ever when he first got his wiskers till pacifica staged an intervention 

forgot to tell stan he was trans till he got body hair and stan joked it was his genetics to thank, dipper responded he was lucky they worked with the T he takes

drinking/drugs

cant smoke weed or he gets suuuuper paranoid, only smoked once w wendy and tried to smoke more to calm down but just ended up greening hard

drinks alcoholic ginger beer and indie APIs wendy recommends, though shes more of a whisky gal

super low alcohol tolerance, doesnt drink often

drinks mabels own recipe cocktail monstrosities when she convinces him they wont get shitfaced, always ends up shitfaced because theyre 100% alcohol + sugar and mabels tolerance is like double his, will always eventually end with him trying to explain lotr poorly

once drank so much caffeine he started hallucinating 

tripsits mabel (LSD legend) and sometimes wendy (totally does shrooms), again is neurotic and should under no circumstances take hallucinogens 

sometimes smokes cigs when stressed, tries to hide it but is laughably bad, sometimes bums a cig off wendy

[secretgamergirl]

Wire Witch Hex - Wearing Many Hats (Font Design)

Lately most of the traffic I'm getting on this blog has been people stumbling onto my multipart series on how a computer works. Glad people are enjoying that as much as they seem to be. My reason for teaching myself all of that (besides just the joy of learning) is I'm very slowly working on designing a new video game console that anyone sufficiently motivated can build for themselves as a neat little DIY project. There are so many moving parts to this project that for now I'm focusing mainly on just the controller and its unique features. To avoid having to make a whole working console, with software, to test it, and make sure I have something to show for all this if the rest doesn't pan out, I'm designing the controller to also be more or less compatible with the NES and SNES (which secretly use the same input standard, just differently shaped plugs at the end of the cord).

This means all I'll need to test and demo my controller is an SNES ROM that knows what to do with my scroll-wheel outputs, a setup where an emulator accurately handles those signals, and later a cart I can slap a couple EEPROMs into and test on real hardware. Oh and I also need to teach myself enough about SNES development to actually create every demo I want to run, do all the art, code it up, and compile it. This is a big job, and I'm not getting paid, so maybe consider throwing me a little money before we dig into this?

Since... really the last time I reported in on this, I've been studying away trying to learn all this, and hey, have a compiled ROM image that'll display a blank screen in any color I want, and a third party program that IN THEORY with a bit of massaging will convert a 256x256 image into an SNES character ROM image. AKA the file with all the graphics. My ultimate goal for this demo cart is to cycle through several very simple games, showcasing how my controller works with each. So I need to cram every image any of these are going to need into my one big image file, which I'm slowly picking away at, but the one thing I knew from the start that I'd definitely need is to throw some text on screen explaining the controls for each demo. And since it's not like there's a built in font in in the system, I had to make my own.

This is not my first font-making rodeo. For this one, my thinking was, I'm going to be in a fixed 16x16 resolution per character (because I forgot the specifics of how the SNES actually tiles graphics), some built in spacing so I can slap them all right up against each other or some border and still be readable, and I wanted a nice little shadow built into every character in case they end up on a low contrast background. Let's zoom in on what I have here so far, in case you don't feel like downloading the file and blowing it up to something more readable.

The first thing I want to note is that after finishing the first 4 rows of characters here, I double checked, and while the SNES CAN break backgrounds into 16x16 tiles, the absolute minimum is 8x8. If I were really trying to be space efficient, I should have designed around that. Several of these characters would easily fit into a 16x8 space, that level of compression would also let me have just the period and comma and be able to build a colon, semicolon, or apostrophe from those, and most importantly, I rendered this with all of the lowercase letters exactly 1 pixel too tall to fit into a 16x8 space and let me double up there. Since I'm rather happy with this font so far and I'd eventually like to make some version of it available for, if nothing else, other people writing software for my eventual console here, I will likely, at some point, make a more space-optimized variation. I'd also like to cover a wider range of characters. At the very least, have some accent marks, wouldn't be too hard to add support for Cyrillic. Pretty sure I can get Japanese and Korean text in keeping with this look. Maybe some other languages. Anyway though, let's talk about what I've got.

My general design rule here was, where possible, make lines 2 pixels thick, and have each white pixel cast a black pixel shadow immediately below, to the right, and the diagonal between them. This gives a pretty convincing relief effect in my opinion, and keeping the shadows this thick keeps a nice firm edge there so it's even generally readable on a pure white background. Within each 16x16 tile, I was extremely strict about keeping a 1 pixel margin clear at the top and bottom of each image, and 2 or 3 on the sides (often 3 on the left, 2 on the right. With capital letters, I went with a generally rigid and blocky style, trying to stretch things to my arbitrary margins. Lowercase letters I restricted to just 8 pixels tall, and those featuring tails are given special permission to drop down an extra pixel, leaving the shadow right on the edge of their true bounding box.

While it wasn't an intentional move at first, several lowercase letters ended up with a decidedly rounded, squashed look, particularly g and q. I found that to be both kind of cute, giving the whole font a real unique character, and eventually started to actively lean into it (which may not be super obvious, I started with W as it's kinda the letter than needs the most breathing room and worked outward from there), and did my best to distort all the rounder shapes and in particular the highly mirrorable b d p q set, as I seem to recall once reading the more you avoid identical shapes with those, the more legible the font becomes for people with dyslexia. Similarly, I made a point of distinguishing the shapes of the Ms and Ws, and added a little whimsy to the numerals. Overall I'm super happy with all the lowercase letters (except for e and s being too thin, but that was an inevitable compromise), and if I ever have the time to kill it's very likely I'll revisit this someday and apply this squishy rounded aesthetic to the capitals too.

Your eyes were probably drawn really quickly to the parentheses here, where for at least the moment I'm breaking my rules about blank space and shifting them inward quite a bit rather than centering them. That's going to look really bad if I use them in a sentence (like this), but the main reason I'm including them right now is so I can list button prompts with both the icons representing what's actually going to be on my controller, and the SNES buttons sharing the same signals. So something like: "GO (A) Jump" and I think the half-spacing and closeness to what they enclose will look pretty nice in this one specific case.

As a final note, the particular hardware I'm working with absolutely supports the ability to mirror any image horizontally or vertically, as well as change the palette. If I truly wanted to cram letters in as efficiently as possible at this font size, I could, for instance, have an 8x8 right-angle segment, build a whole H just from mirroring that, also use it for the legs of the A, P, F, the left side of the D, etc. This however is incompatible with the shadows I'm using for extra readability. And of course for other projects I HAVE made a perfectly legible 8x8 font before.

I'm pointing this out because hey, if you do the math, JUST these characters I've set aside for having arbitrary on-screen text, as is, are consuming 5/16ths of my total graphical memory, and I'm probably never even going to display most of these anywhere. Again, not a huge problem for the simple demo pack I'm making, and that 256x256 drawing space isn't a hard limit. Spending an extra processor cycle to change an index value and access a whole other page of image data is a pretty common practice on the hardware, but especially with older computers and racing to get things ready to draw before a screen refreshes, it's good to at least be mindful of the tradeoffs with that sort of thing.

And again, my sole source of income at the moment is patreon donations, so if you're excited about seeing updates to this weird project of mine or you're learning useful things from any of it, maybe consider throwing me a little support?

[somediyprojects]

DIY Wooden Wax Seal

Project by RageHaus:

This is a wooden wax seal tutorial I created and used on my S'amuser Avec Le Français project.

Before you begin, make sure you have access to all of these items:

wooden dowel

wood burning tool with a fine tip

pencil

printout of design

xacto knife

sandpaper

tape

stain

old rag

vegetable oil

paper towels

sealing wax

matches

1. Prep the dowel by sanding the end you plan on using as the seal. Try to get out the little dings and scratches, otherwise they will show up in the wax impression.

2. Measure the exact diameter of the wooden dowel and design your seal. If you are designing a simple monogram, such as our RageHaus seal, you can easily design it in a variety of computer applications. Start by drawing a circle that is the exact diameter of the dowel with a thin stroke. Then arrange the letters within the circle. Keep in mind that you should keep the detail relatively simple unless you have a lot of experience carving small detail into wood.

3. Print the final design and cut out the letters with an xacto knife. Think of this step as making a stencil. Keep in mind that it doesn't have to be perfect, but you do want to capture the structure of the design.

4. Flip your stencil so it reads backwards and trace the image onto the dowel. Remember that your design needs to be backwards on the seal so the impression it leaves reads correctly. Tape the stencil onto the dowel and trace your design. Once you have a good trace, take off the stencil and fill out the design where you see fit. 

5. Carve out the design with the wood burning tool. They are readily available in most craft stores and come with a fine point tip that can capture small detail. As you carve your design, keep the depth you carve relativity the same for the entire design so you can create an even, smooth impression in the wax.

6. Seal the wood with stain. Wood is a porous material and to prevent the wax from sticking to the seal, you need to seal the wood with stain. Once you have stained your seal, put it in a warm place to dry overnight. You don't want to worry about getting stain on your hands or on your envelopes. 7. Gather the sealing wax, matches, oil, paper towels and an envelope. This process goes quickly and it is important that you have everything you need right in front of you. After you are sure your seal is dry, you can test it. I tried testing mine with candle wax at first, just to see if the impression was coming out correctly. However, if you seriously want to seal envelopes, then I would invest in proper sealing wax. You will find that it has a thick viscosity that creates a strong seal.

8. Have your envelope in front of you with the back facing up. If the flap you want to seal doesn't lay flat then you should weight it down. I used my xacto knife to do this. 9. Hold the sealing wax over the area you want to seal and light the wick. Give the flame a chance to strengthen before you tip the wax to begin dripping it. Once you get a good drip going, keep an eye on the diameter of the wax puddle in relation to the diameter of the seal. This will take practice figuring out how much wax you will need, so don't get frustrated if you don't get it on the first try.

10. Give the wax about 15 seconds to set up, in the mean while prep the seal for action. While I let the wax set-up a bit, I like to take this time to prep my seal by dipping the tip in oil. This gives you double the protection from having the wax stick to the seal. Blot the excess oil on a paper towel and make sure you wipe down the edges of the seal.

11. Press your seal gently, but firmly in the wax and let it sit. Let the wax dry completely before removing the seal. When you are sure that the wax is completely dry, start to wiggle the seal back and forth gently until you feel the seal release from the wax.

12. Voilà! A seal is made. With a little practice it will get easier. You can also use this impression to go back and fix anything you might not have noticed while carving out the design.