#Email backup service

[leveragehunters]

An alternative to google docs

To paraphrase a recent post: google docs is pants as a writing tool.

I'm suggesting MS Word as an alternative. Yeah, I know, it's not perfect, but it is (IMO), better than google docs.

But I'm not just suggesting Word when I suggest Word. I'm suggesting a free Microsoft account, which gives you Word and OneDrive.

It only takes a minute or two and a free account gets you:

Word in the browser

A OneDrive with 5gb of storage - now, 5gb might not be much holistically but in terms of text based documents, it's decent. My entire 'Fic' folder is 2.11gb. That's everything I've ever written and all their drafts, wips and their multiple drafts, betaed fics, ideas, writing refs and guidance, archived drafts/fics, AND the 500+ fics I've downloaded as epubs from AO3).

Excel, Outlook, Teams, OneNote - basically the whole Microsoft365 suite - in the browser

I use Word exclusively, both for fic and for work (where I write extensively), and the online version does everything I need. It autosaves, has version control/reversion, and sharing (if that's what you're into), and you can seamlessly copy and paste from Word into AO3's rich text editor - no formatting adjustments required.

Anyway, it's something to think about. If you want to give it a try, the simplest way is to create a new OneDrive account, which will also give you everything else.

Go here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/microsoft-365/onedrive/online-cloud-storage (clickable link)

Click 'Create a free account'.

Click 'get a new email address' and follow the prompts (recommended but not required) or use an existing email address. If you create a new email address, don't actually use it for email. It's just the umbrella the account sits under.

That's it; you're done.

[badolmen]

The power is out babes make me work on something:

[astercontrol]

If KOSA passes

Or if any other form of censorship (there are many in the works!) ever succeeds at stepping in to impede our ability to communicate online:

We have to make plans.

Now, I dunno who'll even see this post. The few followers I have are TRON fans (who despite the fantasy we live in, tend to have realistically dismal views IRL about Disney and the various corporate uses of software).

And this fandom, on average, is pretty tech-savvy. It's where I've encountered the most people under 20 years old who actually know how to use a desktop or laptop computer.

So, if there's any hope for what I'm thinking about, this is prolly a good place to start with it.

(As with all my posts, I encourage reblogging and containment-breaching.)

(Gifs are clips from TRON 1982, mainly the "deleted love scene," from the DVD extras.)

Anyway.

Current society has moved online communication much too far onto major social media sites for my comfort. Whoever you communicate with over the internet, chances are you do it through a service owned by a big company: Tumblr, Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Facebook, whatever. Even TikTok (shudder).

These sites, despite their many flaws, can provide experiences that are valuable and hard to get otherwise. And once all your friends are on one site, you can't just leave and stay in touch with them all, not unless they all go the same place. It's easy to see why it's hard to abandon any social media platform.

But a backup plan is important. Because, as we've seen over and over, social media sites can't be relied on. They change their policies suddenly, without good reason-- and are inconsistent, even discriminatory, about enforcing those policies.

If they're funded by ads, the advertisers are their main customers, and your posts are the product. Their goal is that the posts most valuable to the advertisers get seen by people the advertisers consider desirable customers.

Helping you communicate-- making your posts get seen by the people you want to communicate with-- is optional to them.

Not to mention that the whole business model of an ad-funded website is generally unsustainable. Many of these sites are operating at a loss, relying on shareholders in a fragile bubble, doomed to fail soon just from lack of real profit.

And the more restrictions --like KOSA-- that the law puts on freedom of online speech, the likelier they are to go down or just become unusable. Every rule a site is required to follow is another strain on its resources, and most of them are already failing badly at even enforcing their own self-imposed rules.

If we want any control over our continued ability to stay in touch with our online friends-- we need to have a backup plan. Maybe it'll be simple at first, a bare-bones system we cobble together-- but it's gotta be something that will work. For a while at least.

There are lots of really good posts about ways to build your own website, using a service like Neocities. I VERY MUCH recommend learning this skill-- learning to make websites of the very simplest, most stable, glitch-resistant type, made of html pages-- which you can upload to a host while you store backups on your home computer. If you value the writing and art that you put online, this is probably the safest you can keep it.

But that's for making your own creative work public.

As for communicating with others-- for example, receiving and answering other people's comments on your work-- that gets more complex. I personally haven't found it worthwhile to troubleshoot the problems that come with having a system that allows visitors to comment publicly on my website.

But what we do still have-- and likely will for a long time-- is email.

Those of us who came of age before social media's current hold... well, we might take this for granted. Email was the first form of online contact we ever encountered… and thus it can seem to us like the most ordinary, the most boring.

But in the current world, it is a rare and precious thing to find a method of communicating that doesn't require everyone in the chat to be signed on with the same corporation.

Email is, as of now, still perfectly legal-- as much as social media companies have been trying to herd the populace away from it. I'm sure there are other ways to share thoughts online that are not bound by laws. But I am not going to go into that here.

Email service is provided by law-abiding companies, which will comply with subpoenas if law enforcement thinks you are emailing about doing illegal things. So, email is not a surefire way to be safe, if laws become dystopian enough to threaten your freedom to talk about your own life and identity.

But it's safer than posting on a public social media page.

For now.

Email is beautifully decentralized. You can get an email address many different ways-- some reliant on a company like Gmail, others hosted on your own domain. And different people, with all different types of email addresses, hosted in all different ways-- can all communicate together by the same method.

Of course any of these people, individually, can lose their email address for some reason or other, and have to get a new one. But as long as they still know the email addresses of their contacts, they can reconnect and recover from that loss. The structure of a group linked by email is reliant not on a single company-- but on the group itself, the friends you can actually count on.

This is why I am trying to promote the idea of forming email lists, as a backup plan to give people a way to stay in touch as mainstream social media sites prove to be unsustainable.

I'm envisioning a simple system of sending emails to several addresses at once, and making each reply visible to everyone in the chat by using "reply all" (or, if desired, editing the To field to reply to only some).

If enough people get used to using email in this way, it could fill most of the needs met by any other group chat or forum …without depending on a centralized social media company that's taking dystopian measures to try and make the business profitable.

So here are some thoughts about how I personally imagine it could work.

(Feel free to comment and bring up any thoughts I haven't addressed, or suggestions to customize how specific groups could set it up. This is meant as more of a starting point for brainstorming than a catch-all solution.)

As I see it, here are the basics of what you and your friends would each need to start out:

An email address. Any kind, hosted anywhere. You should use a dedicated email account just for this group, one that you do NOT use for other communication. Being in this group will result in things you don't want happening to your main email address-- like getting a TON of email, one for every post and reply. Or someone could get your email address that you really don't want any contact with. Use a burner email account (one that you can easily replace) and change it if needed.

The knowledge of how to "REPLY ALL" in your email. This will be necessary in order to add a comment that everyone in the group can see.

The knowledge of how to EDIT THE "TO" FIELD in your email, and remove addresses from the list of all recipients. This will be necessary if you want to CHANGE WHICH PEOPLE in the group can see your comment.

The knowledge of how to FILTER WORDS in your email. This will be necessary if a topic comes up that you don't want to see any mentions of.

The knowledge of how to BLOCK PEOPLE in your email. This will be very important. If someone joins this email group who you do not want to interact with, it will be up to you to BLOCK them so that you do NOT see their messages. (If they are bad enough to evade the block with multiple burner accounts, that's what you have a burner account for. Change it, and share the new one only with those you trust not to give it to them.)

Every person in the group will be effectively a "moderator" of the group, able to remove people from it by cutting their email addresses out of the "To" field. Members will all have equal "moderator" privileges, each able to tailor the group to their own needs.

This means the group may naturally split, over time, into other groups, each one removing some people and adding others. Some will overlap, some won't. This is good! This is, in my opinion, what online interaction SHOULD be like! There should be MANY groups like this!

In this way, we can keep online discussion alive, no matter WHAT happens to any of the social media websites.

If the dystopia got bad enough to shut down email, we could even continue with postal mail and photocopies, like they did in the days of print-zine fanfiction.

If it looks like the dystopia is gonna come for postal mail too, we'll use the connection we have to preserve whatever contacts we can with people who live near us.

Not saying it's GONNA get that bad. But these steps of preparation are good no matter exactly what kind of bad stuff happens.

As long as some organized form of communication still exists, we'll have a place where it's at least a little safer to be your true self…

to plan events and meetups…

and maybe even activities a little too risque to make the final cut of a 1982 Disney movie.

They're trying to censor us. We want a Free System. So we're gonna fight back.

For the Users. Not the corporations.

Peace out, programs. <3

[ms-demeanor]

How comparable is the security provided by passkeys (specifically the sort provided by ubikey and the likes, not the ones tied to Google/Microsoft/Apple accounts), compared to password managers?

Like yeah, I should use a password manager, I know... And not every service supports passkeys yet. But does it provide similar security in its current form, or not? Also why?

I consider passkeys and device recognition as a replacement for multifactor authentication, not for passwords.

My dislike of passkeys as a replacement for passwords has a lot to do with sometimes needing to use passwords on a device I've never signed onto before. For example let's say you're on vacation and you fall off a boat with the bag that has all of your electronics - your phone, your laptop, etc., in it. You need to contact someone at home to help you get the money to replace the things that fell into the water - can you log into your email account to get ahold of your parents/partners/friends from the business center at your hotel or on a computer at the public library?

We use yubico keys for some of our customers, but just for MFA for people who don't want an authenticator on their phones and you *still* have the problem that you might fall off the boat with your MFA key, in which case you're *really* screwed. This is why I also prefer account-based authenticators to device-based authenticators; if you're using a device based authenticator like google authenticator, make sure to store the recovery codes in your password manager so you don't get locked out of your MFA protected accounts if you lose your phone.

So these kinds of things do tend to be very secure, but I consider them risky in two ways:

If you're using your device as a passkey you need to make sure to password protect that device and lock the screen every time you set it down and set a very short time-out for screen lock (I'd say two minutes or less, and still get into the habit of manually locking the screen) because if someone has access to your passkey device they have access to all the accounts protected by it and people are actually pretty bad at protecting their devices.

Cost of failure is really really high. If you lose access to your password manager it's a pain in the ass to reset your passwords but you can reset your email password in a couple of minutes. If you lose access to your passkey device, it is going to be either difficult or impossible to gain access to accounts they were protecting. In this sense, MFA is much riskier *for user access* than password protection and you need need need need to save any and all recovery keys someplace that you can't lose them and in a way that can't be physically destroyed.

(authy is my preferred authenticator; it allows backups of your account that can be recovered with a password, which can be stored in your password manager)

[the-64th-gamer]

I feel like the last year has been a great push for me to slowly detach myself from giant companies and ensure what I do is in my control and ownership

Finally switched over to linux permanently

switched to firefox

enabled adblocker, sponsor blockers, and tracker removers

disabled autoplay and the recommendations sidebar on YouTube (highly highly encourage, though I still keep the homepage open so I can choose when to browse new suggested content rather than it pestering me)

downloaded all my tumblr posts and now host them parallel on my website (stuck here until we find some decentralized way of doing social media right)

cleared out 99% of my online storage to now be on multiple hard-drive backups

downloaded locally all my music

removed myself from basically every data tracking social media platform except this and YouTube

And now currently I'm trying to consolidate all my feeds into just an RSS reader.

It takes a long time and a lot of planning, but its very rewarding to take control over what you want to see, how you see it, how its formatted, ect. I find these are my steps to an easy transition off a certain service:

Download all your data and back it up. Now your account can be deleted at any time with no remorse.

Find browser extensions that enhance and modify the experience to what you might need. Use that to tangibly guide your preferences. Go ahead and remove the app on your phone if its there.

Research every alternative service and try them out. Begin moving certain activity exclusively to the alternative. Take time getting used to it and see if its better to try more alternatives.

Completely jump ship, delete the account, move all feeds or settings over.

Its an ongoing process but there's still probably a few more years of this to go through. Future plans are:

Completely remove all prior emails and self host a new one

Get off Discord entirely except for running the wiki server. It sucks that Discord is so prevalent. Probably move to various forums. Maybe look into some sort of forum management software such as how RSS feeds tame articles and videos into one place.

Setup adblockers directly into my router so ads won't even appear on phones.

Setup my phone to just straight up also run linux. There's a few mobile-designed linux platforms to look into until I decide.

[shepherds-of-haven]

Unsolicited Writing Advice

Completely random reminder to back up your work, especially if you're a writer, IF or game developer, coder, or creator of any kind. People sometimes ask me what my advice for other writers is, and I always forget to include this one, but it's one of the most important things, especially if your career, livelihood, or long-form projects hinge on writing in any way! Take it from someone who just had two backup methods fail unexpectedly and only the third backup prevented me from losing a solid month of work, you need to back up your work in as many ways as you possibly can. It may seem like a pain in the ass at the time, but I've seen a lot of games or stories stall or fail completely due to a catastrophic loss of data that utterly kills any drive to keep going with the project because of the need to start over. I'M BEGGING YOU, BACK UP YOUR DATA.

I recommend having at least 2, ideally 3 methods of backup:

Automatic cloud storage. I personally prefer working with Dropbox, where every change I save is automatically synced and backed up to a cloud server as well as natively saved on my own device. It also has robust version history, so if you figure out you've done something horrific and unknowingly saved over something important or rewritten a section you weren't supposed to, you can rewind everything in a folder down to a specific minute (over the last 30 days): a feature that has saved my hide just a few too many times for comfort. A free Dropbox account gives you 2 GB of storage to work with. Working within Google Drive works just as well, and the free version gives you 15 GB of storage (though that's shared between your email account and other Google apps, as well)! However, I don't believe it provides automatic syncing and backup the same way Dropbox does: you either have to work directly within a Google doc for your work to be automatically saved to the server, or you have to manually upload the files to your Google Drive to back them up each time.

Physical storage. Every few weeks or months, I also take the time to back up my important files to an external hard drive or thumb drive. Again, it's kind of a hassle, but if the day ever comes that you lose your passwords or find that they've been changed, a company's servers go down or they go bankrupt, they decide to start charging you to access your data, or whatever crazy circumstance you can think of, it's always good to have a physical backup somewhere. A basic 1 TB thumb drive is somewhere around 20$ USD (though it can be slower at that price point if you're transferring a large amount of data each time), and it's even less if you don't need that much storage. A 1 TB external hard drive (which has a much quicker transfer rate) is around 40-50$.

If all else fails, email. If you can't get access to physical storage devices and cloud storage services don't work for you, consider setting up a free Gmail or what-have-you account specifically for backup purposes, then email a copy of your most important files to it every time you make a significant change to them. This may seem sort of primitive and simplistic, but it works, and you can even use it as a little journal or diary of your progress!

Again, you may think this is overkill, but I am convinced that writers are especially prone to proving Murphy's Law and have seen way too many projects, friends, and colleagues fall prey to this oft-overlooked issue. I can count at least half a dozen times where -> my primary device like my laptop broke, failed, became corrupted, had water spilled on it, etc. -> I then turned to my secondary device (hard drive or thumb drive) only to find something was wrong with THAT (broken, outdated, incompatible with currently-owned tech, corrupted, not up-to-date backups) OR I turned to my cloud storage and found something wrong with THAT (unknowingly saved over data and didn't realize it until 3 months later, meaning not even version history could save me) -> and it was only the THIRD method of backing up that saved my ass.

Anyway, this is just your friendly neighborhood writer reminding you to back your work up! It's a necessary part of the job! Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk!

[oldschoolfrp]

Around July 3 at least 32 small wargaming businesses lost their websites to a server crash. Their shared service provider evidently left for a cruise the following day, then later declared that there were no surviving backups. Many small businesses lost access to their business email, purchase histories, and longstanding forums. Some have struggled with little or no income for a month now.

Karwansaray Publishers has been tracking the known affected businesses and providing some alternative contact information on their Wargames Soldiers & Strategy site. The list includes the venerable Hinchliffe Models, Kev White's Hasslefree Miniatures, and many others well known to the wargaming and RPG communities.

Some have come back online with new hosts, but some of those are still rebuilding their stores from scratch. TooFatLardies announced this morning that their store is back up, though they no longer can confirm past PDF purchases for unlimited future downloads. I've been meaning to pick up some of their Lard Magazine PDFs for some skirmish gaming inspiration, so I'm filling up my cart now.

[opencommunion]

urgent action to stop hospital massacres

@ ibnalmajdal and @ walaavoila on ig posted the below statement and call to action: "Join us in holding complicit international institutions accountable, send this appeal and apply pressure to any relevant parties involved in these crimes. We call on you to email, send letters, call them out on social media, and support legal actions that hold them accountable."

Stop the Hospital Massacres: Hospitals Are Not Military Targets

12 November 2023

In the last 48 hours, dozens of distress calls have been sent by medical teams, and by displaced civilians who are sheltering in hospitals and schools which are being subjected to the Israeli occupation aerial and artillery bombardment and gunfire. Residents of Gaza, along with medical aid and relief teams, could not have fathomed the day when they would plead not to be killed, and patients in hospitals are targeted without any response. Yet this is what has happened, as the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organizations have chosen to ignore pleas for relief and evacuation, despite their legal responsibility to protect and aid the victims of war and conflict. 

These organizations turned a blind eye to Israeli tanks besieging hospitals and relentless airstrikes raining fire on innocent civilians seeking refuge in those buildings. Their statements did not dare to name the Israeli occupation army as the source of the attacks, attributing the brutal attacks to unknown sources and using passive language. This scene encapsulates the complicity, if not partnership, of international organizations with Israel in its daily war crimes in Gaza. 

In a deliberate and announced war crime, Israeli airstrikes targeted hospitals and their surroundings, specifically the Al-Shifa Medical Complex (the largest hospital in the region), which the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed has been completely inoperable. In Al-Shifa Hospital, two infants died after power was cut off from the neonatal and intensive care units. Medical teams are now fighting, using primitive methods, to sustain the lives of over 650 wounded and patients, including 39 infants, at risk of death due to the continuous shortages of power and fuel needed to operate backup generators. 

Simultaneously, the Red Crescent announced that only seven of eighteen ambulances are operational in Gaza City and the north, but they are at risk of ceasing operation in the coming hours due to fuel shortages. The Red Crescent has also announced that Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza is out of service due to fuel depletion and power cuts. 

In another crime, the Rantisi Hospital and the Nasser Children’s Hospital in Gaza were forcibly evacuated under Israeli orders, putting the lives of sick children at risk of death after being forcibly transferred, through unknown arrangements by Red Cross employees in collaboration with the Israeli occupation army, to a place where proper medical care is unavailable. We emphasize that evacuating hospitals is not an option to save those inside but a new crime against patients and Gaza residents. 

On several occasions, the Red Cross’s false assurances of safe evacuation operations exposed displaced Palestinians to Israeli shelling and gunfire, resulting in numerous injuries and killings. The Red Cross remained silent about the deadly impact of their false assurances, and continued to encourage displaced Palestinians to evacuate despite their knowledge that it was not safe to do so. 

In clear complicity with Israel’s war crimes, international organizations working in Gaza responded to pleas for help from tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians by stating that they cannot operate in areas deemed “military operational zones.” This forced many residents of the western part of Gaza to leave without protection, making them vulnerable to Israeli targeting. Those who remained in their homes were subjected to horrifying attacks by Israeli occupation soldiers, resulting in casualties and injuries still in need of urgent medical attention.

Immediate and necessary action is needed to save thousands of hospital patients, wounded individuals, newborns, and other trapped civilians that emergency medical and rescue teams cannot reach. In this regard, we demand: 1. Lift the siege on hospitals by Israeli forces immediately and unconditionally. Concerned international organizations must apply pressure threatening to expel the Israeli regime and its representatives from any effective international health bodies. 

2. Supply fuel to besieged hospitals, a legal responsibility falling on the International Committee of the Red Cross and other UN bodies, and they cannot absolve themselves of this responsibility.

3. Immediate accountability from Red Cross officials in their offices within “Israel” for their silence, negligence, and cover-up of the occupation’s crimes for 36 days, especially in their complicity in covering up the crimes against children in the Rantisi and Nasser children’s hospitals. 

4. The Red Cross should announce its intention to evacuate the trapped individuals in the middle and west of Gaza City from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM on Monday 13 November. Since it ignored its duties to provide essential materials for hospital operation, this implies leaving patients and wounded to die until tomorrow. 

5. We firmly demand accountability from the Red Cross for its false assurances of safe evacuations and its role in concealing the crimes of the occupation. We demand that international institutions affiliated with the United Nations and other impartial medical organizations directly oversee evacuation operations. 

6. We demand that international institutions cease their cooperation with Israeli occupation plans to destroy hospitals, to halt their operations, and to leave the wounded without treatment.

We demand these institutions fulfill their duty to guarantee the freedom and protection of hospitals, medical staff and patients, ambulance crews, rescue workers and the arrival of supplies so that hospitals in Gaza City can continue their work in saving the wounded.

7. We warn that international organizations that have not yet issued a joint statement regarding the systematic targeting of hospitals will be officially and directly considered complicit in the war crimes committed in Gaza by Israeli occupation forces. We call for pursuing legal action against them in all possible legal frameworks. 

8. We urge medical teams worldwide, especially Palestinian and Arab teams, to immediately initiate solidarity protest actions with their colleagues in the Gaza Strip and with patients and the wounded against these crimes that constitute a historic threat to the concept of medical work and its necessary immunity under any circumstances. 

[cleavetheclover]

Headcannons about Cypher & his tech capabilities (from most mundane to crazier)

cypher makes everyone do hard resets of computers & other devices once a month and keep backups on two separate physical hard drives, one for themselves and one for cypher. If the protocol is hacked extrenally, very little will be found

each person's room has a unique passcode. if people are dating, their codes work on each other's doors. It’s his funny little way of saying “caught you!” most people haven't realized because they haven't bothered trying

backdoor password to brimstone's bracer is "cypherdiedandiforgotmypasswordagain12345" (brimstone is not aware of this, but he will be automatically informed of such by the bracer if he is still alive and unlocks it with the current password)

cypher has hacked grubhub, instacart, amazon, and literally any other delivery service imaginable so that the protocol never has to pay for groceries or anything

He has thumb drive titled 'gifts' and it's just like 700 tutorials + tiktoks about various arts and crafts activities and there's folders for every type (knitting for omen, whittling for sova and skye, embroidery for astra, pressed flowers for sage, plant care for anyone, spray paint for raze and phoenix, etc.) When an agent has a particularly bad time on a mission he picks one and emails it to that specific agent

Most agents were wary of the “gifts” at first but have come to appreciate it. Everyone is aware that cypher does this but no one talks about it so it’s kind of like a public secret

On a related note, everyone secretly wants cypher to be their secret santa because they know he absolutely will give them the very thing they've been secretly ogling on amazon for the last 70 days

in the month of december, individual security cameras will play christmas carol's at random intervals of the day, and it drives everyone insane, except phoenix, who is a diehard christmas fanatic and loves Christmas music

cypher is an expert at photoshop bc he knows how to look for discern fabricated images etc. this gives him an extremely powerful way to mess with the other agents

if you've ever seen that tweet about the guy who kept making missouri bigger on the US map on the state’s wikipedia page, thats what cypher does to agent portraits. He is the culprit behind widejoy, breach's comedically bushy mustache, reyna's vampire fangs, the extreme size of his own hat, dulling/erasure of chamber's stripes, making yoru's onion hair larger, and occasionally flipping everyone's valorant logo upside-down

fade heard about the digital pranks in the above bullet point and is now cypher accomplice

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Elanor, question in regards to welsh universities. I dont know why i sound so formal. Anyway, if i dont have an official diagnosis for something like autism and adhd and cant get a diagnosis should do i still say im neurodivergent on official forms or nah? (The uni is utwsd)

Dealer's choice, at UWTSD you'll be screened for free by Student Services for dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADHD and autism on arrival regardless (with your permission, obviously!) It's not an official diagnosis, but the university accepts it as such, and it entitles you to all the support and accommodations you'd get with an actual diagnosis. (It also gives you a helpful backup with your GP if you did want to go down the official diagnosis route)

If you do put neurodivergence on the form, the only difference it makes is that you'll get an email from Student Services at the start of the year telling you about what they can offer you in terms of help (including screening, actually). But I'm pretty sure they're starting screening of everyone from this October, so that'll happen whatever you choose.

I should add: this is not true of all Welsh universities! I know for a fact that some of them charge students for screening of each individual condition, and it's a good £300 apiece in some places. But UWTSD has a high proportion of ND students and very good support, so they take a different tack. It's going to be really interesting seeing the percentages now that they're testing everyone.

The final legal stuff: Welsh ALN legislation means you can only be screened with your permission. Your results will also be kept confidential to a degree that you will find annoying if you want to act on them lol - if you want your lecturers to all know, you have to tell each of them OR give explicit permission for them to all be told by Student Support (and request that they all be told in an email, so it's in writing.) Don't assume they'll just know! If you do need a support plan, it will be agreed with you. Your lecturer can amend their teaching at their own discretion, of course, but anything more than that (e.g. rescheduled deadlines), you need to give the go ahead.

I hope this helps! HMU if you have any other questions

[genshin-impact-updates]

A Word of Advice

Hi travelers! Since the future of Twitter is incredibly uncertain at the moment, I wanted to remind everyone to check how you log in to Genshin Impact (and any other service, for that matter). If you exclusively log in with your Twitter account, I recommend adding another login method so you don't get locked out in the event that the site does shut down. You can check your linked accounts and add new ones through the User Center section of the Settings menu.

Other login methods include email, phone number, Hoyoverse account (which can be created in the User Center, if you don't already have one), Facebook, Google (Android exclusive), or Apple ID (iOS exclusive). Even if you don't use Twitter, it never hurts to have a backup method!

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

I love using my new car I bought because you basically need a car in this country and then having the dashboard screen that is legally required because all cars in the US need to have backup cameras, and having that screen be difficult to navigate while driving bc you can’t just go by touch so you have to look at the screen which means you’re not looking at the road. And then I love getting home and seeing I got 3 new emails from different subscription services telling me my free trial has run out for their service that only works on that screen even though I literally never used any of them but was forced to opt in to free trials and to give them my email as a part of the car buying process for some reason

[barbwritesstuff]

Writer to writer, what program do you use? What are your thoughts on "cloud" type services? I ask because I use Word, but I'm at a point where I might change. My work is nothing to write home about, but I'm also hesitant to trust...basically anyone to store my thoughts. I'm basically a feral possum keen on guarding their trash, also on the market for a new garbage bin. Any suggestions?

I am the worst person to ask. I tend to be really reluctant to update to new technology, even when it is blatantly and obviously better. My phone is eight years old, if I use photoshop it's the 2007 version, and I'm still sad about getting a new laptop even though my old one was 10 years old and overheating every couple of hours.

For choicescript projects I use CSIDE. You can download it for free and it makes the experience of writing and coding choicescript so much nicer.

For prose, I still use word, and only VERY recently (when I got the new laptop) started backing up my work on a share drive.

For Ren'py, I use whatever the default thing for Ren'py is. It's not my favourite, mostly due to the lack of an inbuilt spell checker, but it's also just not quite as sleek and sexy looking as CSIDE.

When it comes to trusting clouds and/or organisations to store your writing... I don't have any good advice. If you're worried, you can save all files locally and email yourself a draft as a backup (2001 style).

I'm sure a young person is now judging me for my technological backwardness, so I'm going to stop this here. I hope you find the garbage bin you're looking for, anon.

💙

[casualsnickers]

Month of Emmet Quick Write #18

Prompt #18: Dance

Emmet has a tendency to lose himself in his work. Especially if that work involves not having to talk in the slightest. And it just so happens that it's maintenance day for a beaten-up train cab.

Read the whole thing below the cut.

Emmet wiped the sweat from his brow, slowly ensuring that the last bolt was firmly in its position before scooting back to admire his handiwork. The entire day had been spent meticulously pouring over a train cab that had been needing service for some time after suffering an onslaught of ice. And by using his work time to fix the cab, Emmet himself felt well-maintained and ship-shape as though having come fresh off the assembly line himself.

Emmet carefully took a step away from the unfinished cab, laying his tools on the detached cloth seat he’d been sitting on as he carefully stepped through the gutted cab and onto the rocky railyard where the sound of gravel and ballast shifting underfoot quickly lifted his mood. 

Steam and smoke rose in lazy circles from the Anville Railyard. Other locomotive engineers moved back-and-forth across the semi-noisy yard, hearty conversations filtering through the air as they each lugged their toolbags after them. Each worker would stop and raise a welcoming hand to Emmet as he passed them, tipping their hats but without words. After all, Emmet wasn’t a man for words or small talk; he just needed a break before he got back to work.

In the shade of the engine house, Emmet peeled off his backup cap, leaned against the tin wall, and took a deep drink of water, wiping the excess away with an oil-stained sleeve. Today has been a great day. I have been here for hours maintaining the same car. I am making progress! Emmet moved further back into the recess of the engine house, finding a spare chair to sit in as he took off his stained gloves and checked his Xtransceiver, crossing one leg over another.

A message or two from the group chat he shared with Elesa and Skyla. A note from Ingo about his brother potentially departing from his battling line early to buy some sandwiches from a popular deli spot not too far from Nimbasa City. Emails from his subordinates about new paperwork sent in from the mayor of Nimbasa City. Emmet only rolled his eyes and turned off his Xtransceiver, allowing his gaze to rest on the many disconnected freight cars that littered the rail yard.

Things are finally back in order. And. I am not so stressed anymore. Emmet smiled a bit wider when a familiar pokémon lumbered into the engine house, the amber gems studded along its body glowing as the rock-type pokémon clattered over to Emmet and easily lifted him onto its back.

“Boldore. You are not a chair!” Emmet scolded playfully.

Emmet’s Boldore often remained at the railyard and much like its trainer, would spend almost the entire day staring at the trains and studying them when idle. And Boldore, sensing that its trainer had been taking too long of a break, began stumbling out of the engine house with Emmet atop its back. Emmet only rolled his eyes and leaned back, allowing himself to be carried back to the cab he’d been working on without so much as a fuss.

Working with engines and cabs was mindless. Fun, even. Emmet saw the work not like he saw battling. Battling came down to strategy, luck, and power. But assembly and engineering? Those were based on skill. Intellect. Patterns. Emmet knew every tool that could be used to both deconstruct and reassemble the axle and undercarriage of a Knickerbocker. He knew the blueprints of the wirings of a Juniata like he knew the back of his hands. Emmet had memorized the unique coupling mechanisms of the Saluki and he knew exactly what kind of oil worked best for engines like the Shavano and the Steel King.

Emmet usually performed best without talking. And on his days spent at the railyard, he let his hands do all the talking, the way he could seamlessly work and twist and reach, performing intricate but mindless dances with his hands and fingers as Emmet never faltered or forgot the smallest of screws. Each silencing of a creaky joint through the application of oil was like music to his ears. He counted faraway train whistles and nearly skipped when he heard them, listening idly when new beaten up cabs were dragged in and the pistons of the dragging train surged against the metal of the train tracks, audible for miles around.

Metal clacked. Rocks shifted. Emmet turned, his smile widening as he sighted a familiar Klinklang float over to the door of the cab he was situated in. And then came a familiar man.

“Boss Emmet! It’s time to start wrapping things up!” Emmet paused as a familiar face pokéd into the cab he was working in, the depot agent tipping his oil-stained hat to Emmet as the man took a careful step inside. The man then whistled. “Nice job, boss! At this rate, you’ll have this old cab up and running by next week!”

“Thank you verrry much, Josh!” Emmet grunted as he got to his feet, grimacing upon hearing something in his back give. “...Not a word.”

Depot Agent Josh laughed heartily at the notion, reaching down to grab Emmet by the backstrap of his suspenders. “Not to worry. Your secret’s safe with me, bossman. But really. We should get going.” Josh gestured at a clipboard he’d been carrying under his arm, tapping one chewed-up pen at the clipped paper. “It’s almost midday and we’re supposed to be on the car back to Central Unova no later than noon.”

Emmet nodded, setting one hand delicately upon his Klingklang’s sturdy frame. His pokémon shuddered and whirled, giving a hearty clack before retreating back to its pokéball. “I guess. It is time to report back to Gear Station.”

“Good. Nice to know you’re on board for once. Almost thought you had left already,” Josh commented, patting the excess dust from his stained uniform. “Kept calling and calling for you- no response.”

Emmet paused, cocking his head. “Really? I did not hear you.”

“I know.” Josh shrugged. “You tend to get lost in your work whenever you’re here, boss. It’s like you’re completely deaf to the world whenever you’re working with the cars.” Josh then nudged Emmet with his elbow, grinning mischievously. “I sometimes think you’d rather be here with the broken cars than back at the station.”

“That is… not true.” Emmet crossed his arms and turned up his nose, his eyes crinkling when he noticed Josh struggling to keep pace with him. “I simply enjoy the break.”

“Right, right. Says the man that hums and whistles when he’s elbow-deep in months-old oil.”

[eddiebanana]

[resposted from instagram with the creator's permission. original post description below 👇]

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This is a call to action! @mirna_elhelbawi , founder of @connectinghumanity_ has expressed a dire need for more NOMAD eSIM donations to connect Gaza during this internet blackout. I know the process of purchasing an eSIM may seem complicated and intimidating, but it’s very easy!! I created this very simple graphic because I know that sometimes too much visual information can be overwhelming for folks, and I also wanted to create a graphic which addressed a few hiccups myself and others have encountered while donating eSIMs. If you have any further questions about purchasing eSIMs beyond what I’ve covered here, @mirna_elhelbawi has created a broadcast channel for this purpose!

One last thing. Something that Connecting Humanity has addressed is that sometimes folks will not see their donated eSIMs activated for long periods of time. This can be for many reasons— sometimes an eSIM is kept as a backup for journalists or the recipient simply can’t get somewhere with enough service for activation to work. It HAS been requested that anyone who sent a still-inactive eSIM prior to January 20 reply to their sent email to bump it to the top of the gazaesims inbox.

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Also anyone can repost this anywhere!! You don’t need to credit me or anything. Just talk about eSIMs!