#I have lagged discord multiple times talking about this

[cheshiregrinfu]

I'm dumping my calendars here bc I've been back on this shit again and have no one to talk about my calendars with

(Please talk to me about my calendars I'm begging you, you will not be a bother i promise i am sending you psychic mind waves telling you to ask about my calendars)

Also if any of this is confusing I don't mind explaining!!!

There's three calendars in one world I've been making, the lunar and solar calendars both running on a 365 set due to reasons

Our current months don't make much sense, and I've tracked down and compiled their original names;

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January is named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings. Fairly fitting!

February is named after a Roman purification festival called februa, which occurred around the fifteenth of this month. Februa literally means “month of cleansing”

March is supposedly named after Mars, the Roman god of war.

There are a few different theories about where April gets its name. Some believe that April is derived from the Latin base apero – meaning “second” – because it was once the second month of the year. Others say it comes from another Latin word, aperire, which means “to open” like the opening of buds and flowers during springtime. Still others claim that April was named for Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and procreation.

May is named for the Greek goddess Maia.

June is named after Juno, the wife of Jupiter and queen of the gods.

July was the birth month of Julius Caesar, for whom the month was renamed following his death in 44 B.C. Previously, July was called “Quintilis,” which is Latin for “fifth” and referred to the fact that, with the calendar year beginning in March, July was the fifth month.

August is the only other month named after a historical figure – Augustus Caesar, who was the nephew of Julius Caesar and the first emperor of Rome. Much like July, August was previously called “Sextilius,” meaning – you guessed it – “sixth.”

September, October, November, and December come from the Latin words septem, octo, novem, and decem, meaning “seventh,” “eighth,” “ninth,” and “tenth.”

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Now i wanted to make a new calendar set on the 12 month idea, but now with (mostly) latin counting base of 1 through 12, and starts on the season change, instead of randomly in the middle of winter.

Lunar

1/Unusilius (30) [Start of spring/New years day, starts on equivalent of March 20th]

2/DuosIlius (31)

3/Tresilius (30)

4/Quattorilis (31) (Start of Summer)

5/Quintilis (30)

6/Seitilius (30)

7/September (30) (Start of fall)

8/October (31)

9/November (30)

10/December (31) (Start of Winter)

11/Undecember (30)

12/Duodecember (31) (New years eve)

October and November both have Hallows eve (oct 31) and day (nov 1), as I've extended it to be two days bc i really like Halloween. In universe these are the days of preparation and protection as all sorts of undead come to life on hallows day, so hallows eve is people preparing food, shoring up their homes, ect.

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now there's also the solar calendar, which i haven't finished naming, but works on an 8 month system, having 45 day months except for the first and last months, which have 46 days, so it looks kinda like this

1/Early Spring (46)

2/Late spring (45)

3/Early summer (45)

4/Late Summer (45)

5/Early Fall (45)

6/Late Fall (45)

7/Early winter (45)

8/Late winter (46)

i was thinking of having them known as Novus Ver/ Vetus Ver ect but that seems a bit much and I'd prefer each month as one word like with the lunar calendar

Ver/Istas/Autumnus/Hiems being spring/summer/autumn/winter, and novus/vetus being early/late

I'm not sure if I want even weeks in this, such as 9 5 day weeks or 5 9 day weeks

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and finally there's the third calendar, which uses the lunar/solar calendars as a basis, known as the celestial calendar. Gods use this instead of the mortal calendar, and each 'Month' is a mortal decade

This calendar is 5 months long, or half a mortal century. I don't have names for what these months are, or how many 'days' make up these celestial months, or how long those days are

[tower-of-chaos]

• FAQ - Session 3 •

- What is this event about? What do you mean by a ‘collaborative drawing session’?

I will be hosting a live drawing session using a program that allows multiple people to work on a single canvas. The artists will be able to draw together, but everyone in the fandom is free to come and watch!

- What drawing program is being used?

Aggie.io will be used to host the session. It’s a regular website, so it doesn’t require you to install anything. There’s also a chat feature that will allow us to talk and there’s no voice or video options that you have to worry about.

- When is this taking place?

The date will be Saturday, October 24, but now there's two times available!

One will take place at 12:00 PM EST and the second one is scheduled for 9:00 PM EST.

- Do I need to sign up?

Yes, but only the artists need to sign up. Because there was a lot of lag last time, I want to set the limit to four artists per canvas.

The drawing session at 12:00 PM EST will have two separate canvases, so eight artists in total.

The session at 9:00 PM EST will have one canvas for four artists.

People watching do not need to sign up. Feel free to watch whichever session is best for your time.

Sign-ups are first come, first serve.

- What if I signed up, but I won’t be able to make it?

The sheet will remain open for the artists to add or remove their name anytime.

If you find that you won’t be present to the session you signed up for, please delete your name from the sheet as soon as possible. 

You may also change your spot to a different time as long as it’s available. Do not delete anyone else’s name and replace it with yours.

Let me know if you need me to approve your edits after signing up or changing your spot on the google doc.

- Any other new rules?

I’m asking all of the artists to sign their names on their drawings. Whether you want to write the name you go by or your tumblr username, it’s up to you.

You can post your individual drawings onto your blog, but don’t post everyone’s drawings. That will be done here.

- How long will the session last?

It will last for about two hours. You do not have to stay for the duration of the session.

- Can I participate even if I’m not an artist?

Yes, of course! Having an audience would make the session a lot more enjoyable! You can also suggest ideas to the artists.

- What if I have questions?

If you have questions about the session, feel free to send an ask to this blog. If it’s something more private or urgent, my main account is @aj-draws and you can DM me anytime.

I also made a discord server for ToG Events! Please come and join if you’re interested in supporting, joining or hosting an event :D I made a post about it with the link here

- Anything else that I need to know?

Check out this post about the rules before submitting questions. Thanks!

[blubberquark]

PyGame, OpenGL, and performance

(This is a post I can link to in Discord the next time somebody asks the frequently asked questions “Why is pyGame slow?“ or “Why do you even use pyGame? It’s slow!”)

There’s some confusion about what is fast or slow in pyGame. With the new, SDL2-based version of pyGame around the corner, some programmers are excited about a new pyGame that could be fast.

I talked about pyGame in an IRC channel for Python programmers. “pyGame is slow“ said somebody “and I hope they take out all the software-based rendering and replace it with fast hardware rendering“.

But what exactly is the thing that makes the software rendering with SDL-1.2 “slow“? Is OpenGL fast? Will the new SDL2 with SDL_Renderer be fast?

Let’s look at some cases:

Software rendering scales with the number of pixels

Blitting a 16x16 surface onto another surface is fast. Blitting a 16x16 surface means copying 16*16=256 pixels, which are probably 256 machine words, onto another surface. If you blit two 16x16 surfaces, it will probably take twice as long.

Blitting a 64x64 surface will roughly take 16 times as long.

Rotating or scaling a small surface is also fast. Rotating a 1024x1024 surface is slow, because it’s a lot of pixels. Scaling a small surface up to  1920x1080 is slow.

Blitting 100 16x16 surfaces is probably faster than rotating a single 256x256 surface.

Whether you can blit, scale, or rotate once per frame or multiple times in a tight inner loop depends on the size of your surfaces.

I/O is always too slow

Loading an image from the hard disk with pygame.image.load is slow. You should load your images once and then keep them in ram.

Reading a text file from the hard disk is also potentially slow.

Writing a file to the hard disk is potentially slow.

Network i/o can lag sometimes, and be fast sometimes.

Don’t load and save things every frame! Either do this behind a loading screen, or in a separate thread!

OpenGL has high overhead (but then it gets fast)

Drawing a single 16x16 sprite as a textured quad can be slower than blitting in software.

Drawing 256 sprites with the same texture at different places on the screen is not much slower. The draw call has high overhead, but the marginal cost of another quad is low. It’s much faster than doing the same in software.

If you put sprites together into a texture atlas, you can draw different sprites in the same draw call, sharing the overhead.

Copying a texture to the GPU is slow. Copying a texture from RAM to the graphics card is definitely slower than blitting.

Copying a small texture to the GPU and scaling it up with a shader might still be faster than scaling up a surface in software.

Scaling up a surface in software and only then copying the big texture to the GPU is pointlessly slow.

If you are only drawing a bunch of quads, you can afford to update the coordinates each frame, rather than keeping the mesh on the GPU. It’s only 8 single-precision per quad, 4 x-y pairs of floats, so 32 bytes in total.

You can probably copy a texture it once per frame, or update certain textures when gameplay events happen. Ideally, you should load all your textures and meshes once only. That means you should not use functions like pygame.draw.line to draw into your textures every every frame.

Some things are performance traps

Iterating over the pixels in a surface with for-loops is slow. PyGame and numPy are optimised. Fragment shaders run in parallel. Don’t iterate over the pixels in for loops.

You can draw on surfaces, then blit these surfaces onto other surfaces, and then compose them together. It’s faster to blit everything to the screen in the right order. If you have multiple transparent layer surfaces, and blit each layer to the screen, then that touches a lot of pixels in every frame.

Font rendering is fast enough to do it every frame, but often you can just cache the resulting surface, especially if there is a lot of UI on your screen.

You can implement collision detection inefficiently. OpenGL won’t help you with collision detection.

You need to carefully profile if your algorithms are slow, or whether you can benefit from using a faster implementation. Maybe you can just take a slow operation out of a tight inner loop.

Game Engines are structured for performance

Game engines like Flixel, Unity3D, or Godot usually don’t blit things every frame, but they use long-lived objects for UI elements, sprites or 3D models. That means when a new game object is created, the graphics data is copied to the graphics card, and the fonts are rendered once. Until the game object is destroyed, only small changes need to be made.

For things that are instantiated and destroyed frequently, modern game engines have special systems, like particle systems and the FlxBullet system in HaxeFlixel that allows you to render and create many bullets at once.

Particle systems are fast because they render dozens or hundreds of instances of the same particle with the same shader in one OpenGL draw call.

But if you are drawing small clouds or small particles in 2D and in software with pyGame, you do not need hundreds of particles. Maybe you only need to blit a small surface a couple of times, which should be fast enough.

PyGame allows you to write your own main loop, and to control how and when to draw everything, and lets you mess with the pixels on the surfaces before and after you blit them.

TL;DR: PyGame might be slow, but not for the reasons you might think. Hardware acceleration is not a magic wand that makes everything fast. Some operations are slower with OpenGL hardware, even if the resulting game will be faster overall.

[aharris00britney]

More questions about patreon cause it's not everyday that your parents let you spend money with cc,so,I saw that there are many options to patreon you,so if I want to have everything?,Like hair voting,wips pictures,getting "today",you know?,I want all of those,wich option I choose?,thanks,I promise that i'll patreon you with the biggest amount of money that I can ;-;

Okay so $1 gets you the early releases each month. Each month gets 3 hairs at once around the 5th-10th. •$2 allows you the early releases, and you can vote on which hairs you want released the next month (right now i have 10 wips. 6 of them were voted on for June, and the voting lasted about 15 days). You also gets access to a special channel in my discord server where I post pics of me working on the hairs and show pictures of different versions of the hairs for you guys to help me pick which look best, along with if I should do any accessories such as flowers/ribbon/bows. •$5 is all previous awards, plus the ability to pick 1 of the hairs in my wips to be released in the next month without any influence from the $2 patron vote. You can also watch me work on the hairs live using discord screen sharing and ask me questions and stuff. I have tried making videos/streams multiple times and it is so laggy (ayoshi tested with me in July and again in November and December last year) but on discord it doesn’t lag when I screen share. In the screen share you can ask me meshing questions, talk to me about my wips and give suggestions for me to play around with in blender.

I hope this helps explain stuff a bit better 😊 I’m feeling a little sick tonight so I’m doing this on my phone and idk how to do a “read more” 💀💀 so RIP people’s dashboards

[arishamod]

So have you heard about the Aqours full-length concert in LA in July 4? And then they have to return to Japan for the 3rd leg of WS tour in July 7. In only 4 days ??! I can't believe this. Our girls will absolutely be exhausted from this schedule. Do you think that it's a very bad move of the managers ? I mean there more concert could increase the LL fan base, and NA market is a good place to develop the image of Aqours and LoveLive. But will this be too much for our girls ??

Yup I have heard about it, and I’ve seen the comments on Twitter, Reddit and the Discord server. I might not have a opinion that many share, but I hope everyone can hear me out.

Holding multiple lives over a short period of time, not to mention having to fly to a location across the world, would mean that there is limited time to rehearse, rest and adjust to the jet lag. I do understand that there are a group of people who are concerned about their health. We are always constantly looking out for them and hope they won’t fall sick. 

However I do not like this concept of “overworking the Seiyuus” being thrown around (mainly also due to the fact that Arisha is working so hard because she wants to and not because she is forced to). If you asked me, my concept of overworking is having a back to back live concert with just a few hours of sleep (and no I do not want them to ever be in that situation).

First of all, Aqours has come a long way since 2015. They have moved from 4 songs a session to 22+ songs for an entire live event. They have improved tremendously over the years and to the point that you can call them proficient at their jobs. I am really sad that it is not recognised. Being ignorant and saying that they should not do this, or their management shouldn’t have done this is just disrespect their progress and disrespecting their choices (and also doubting their ability to do so).

That comes to my second point, if you have followed their interviews closely, they have mentioned that being in LA for AX, or in fact any other countries, and being able to see their overseas fans makes them really happy. There might be questions floating around about whether the decision in the end ultimately lies with everyone (including the Seiyuus) or is it ultimately decided by the management? Are they forced to go to AX and have this tight schedule? However, the management and the whole of Aqours would have already thought about this scheduling problem. They would have rejected this invite if they knew they couldn’t do it, or if they even think that this schedule would cause one of them to collapse during Fukuoka Live. In the end there is a lot of what ifs and unknowns that we do not know, and I would respect the choices and decisions made by both the members of Aqours and the management. They too would have gone through all this thought process just like we did. I’m sure that being in LA,AX would bring them much joy in meeting their fans and being able to spend time with them. (and on a side note, I’m sure they would “complain” about how challenging this was in a later interview and state that they were happy to meet everyone)

Lastly, and this might be a turn off for many, but they are aiming to reach out to their overseas market. AX has always been the largest convention in NA and the exposure and experience will always be a factor that they will consider. I am going to blunt too and say that money is also what will motivate this. In the end money speaks, but in exchange for that, their exposure will bring joy to many fans in NA

(oh and to be honest, I hate seeing some of those “concerned” fans who ain’t even from NA talking about this. They ain’t coming to their country and they ain’t affected by it and proceeds to say that this shouldn’t even be happening. YOU are disrespecting every fan in NA who gets the opportunity to see them, and YOU shouldn’t have the right to decide that.)

(on anther side note, all you idiots who are comparing bands to Aqours, remember, BANDS DO NOT HAVE TO DANCE AROUND WHILE SINGING. But if Bandori ever does this my opinion still stands)

(EDIT: last last last note: sometimes you have to work hard to achieve things that are impossible and out of your reach, isn’t that the Aqours’ way of doing things?)

[fantabulosogamedev]

Feedback Request: v1.0′s Shaders

Hey everyone!

I know it’s been pretty radio silent outside of the Discord, but rest assured, I’ve gotten a ton of work done in the past month and a half.  I’m hoping to make a progress update (and maybe a special treat on top of it) within the next few weeks detailing all this work, but right now I’m gonna show off one thing specifically: the new shader plans for Le Fantabulous Game v1.0!  Featuring a guest appearance from a v0.9 veteran...hopefully you guys can figure out who!

*as a sidenote, every picture is meant to have fire particles on the fuses

(full size here)

Above, you can see my baseline plan is.  For the majority of the past year, I’ve been using Toony Colors Pro 2 in The Fantabulous Game -- I originally planned to use it for Le Fantabulous Game as well, but hit a possible snag: the shaders only work in the Forward Rendering pipeline, and not in the Deferred pipeline.

I’ve talked about this before, but the core difference between Forward and Deferred Rendering comes down to lighting.  In Forward Rendering, every single light source in the scene reduces the performance of the game -- those of you who were fine in the Fightyplace but encountered major lag in the Prison or Castle of LFG v0.9, this is a large part of where that lag came from!  Those areas both had a massive amount of light sources due to the fact that I didn’t understand how lighting worked back then.

(full size here)

Once again, keeping things in layman’s terms, Deferred rendering (pictured above) doesn’t have this problem.  Due to the way it works, it has a higher baseline performance impact, but it can have a massive amount of lights in a given area very cheaply, performance-wise.  If you want more information on the differences, check out this section of the Unity manual!

Long story short, for you guys, the differences come down to two things: Lots of atmospheric lighting in Deferred, or nicer toony effects (i.e. halftoning and better outlines) in Forward rendering.  The example above, with having bombs the player fires create light, is something that would be very risky performance-wise in Forward Rendering.  However...

While discussing this on the Discord, it was suggested that I also try out Realistic shading, as opposed to Toony shading, to see what happens, and the results were...surprisingly good!

(full size here)

(full size here)

Above are two examples for Realistic Deferred lighting (with and without outlines, respectively), with a couple of very interesting things to note.  First and foremost, both examples are actually default Unity shaders.  This means two things: #1, there has been a MASSIVE improvement in Unity’s default graphical fidelity since the times of v0.9 (which also used default shaders), and #2, the fact that it looks reasonably good even when untextured and using a default shader means there’s a ton of room to improve.  Both Toony options are routes I consider more or less graphically complete, though Toony Deferred has the same routes for improvement as Realistic Deferred does.

The main advantage of Realistic Deferred over Toony Deferred is that objects caught in multiple light sources look a lot cleaner, due to the fact that they don’t have multiple toony cuts interfering with each other.  Beyond (and even including) that, though, it’s all about what’s most aesthetically pleasing...which is where you guys come in!

(full size here)

Above, you can see all four options next to one another.  I’ve created yet another Strawpoll to gather you guys’ input on what you think looks the best.  You can find it by clicking here, and you can select whichever options you think look the best -- even if you don’t care, marking down all 4 options helps keep the margins between the options more accurate for me!

Beyond that, if you wanna have your voice heard more than just a vote, come swing by the feedback channel on the Fantabulous Game(s) discord by clicking here!  Thanks for reading all this, and I’ll see you guys with a major progress update soon!

[minrcrafter]

Vanilla Latte [Vanilla][SMP]{Whitelist}{1.13}

Vanilla Latte is a privately owned server, looking for like-minded, introverted people to chill and play minecraft with. Because we are privately owned, we do not take monetary donations and we do not have moderators/staff.

We are a small group of friends who met during the final stages of the 1.13 snapshots. We are a 1.13 vanilla server with only three additions: we will run Spigot for lag optimization, CoreProtect for grief prevention, and DiscordMC to talk to players via Discord on the server (and vice-versa). We aim to be vanilla multiplayer, no additional customization, command blocks, or game rule changes.

We are currently running pre-7 1.13, with plans to switch to 1.13 the day of release.

Our Mindset

Small, tight-knit community - We value quality over quantity. We aim to recruit like-minded players who want long-term vanilla fun.

Mature players - Our application process may be rigorous, but it’s because we have a hands free approach to playing. We want to recruit people we can trust to respect our friends and rules.

Family-friendly atmosphere - While the mass majority of us are adults, we value wholesome fun.

Introvert friendly - No pressure server where players can chat and joke around, while not feeling the need to constantly be in voice chat or contribute to community projects. We do not and will not offer voice chat for this reason (and to protect our underage players).

Details

New map/server started 7/1/18

Mob grief is enabled

Fire spread is enabled

Inventory drops upon death

Difficulty: Hard

AFK farms allowed, no AFK kicks

Map is 20k x 20k (for now)

4 gb server (for now)

Getting Started - Trial Period

Upon application approval, you join our server as a Trial rank. Your rank is displayed via Discord. You have three weeks as a Trial to remain active, friendly, and rule-abiding. If you complete the trial period without issues, you will be promoted to Member. Members are long-term, trusted players.

When you first log in, you start off on a small island, which has just enough resources to survive your first day. Collect and gather what you need from our farm, oceans, and mine then sail off to build your own land! We aim for players to be self-sufficient, while not sacrificing our community friendliness. Are you a lone wolf who enjoys chatting while working on your projects? Can you read and follow rules without micro-managing or moderation? Are you chill and just want to chill? Then this server is for you!

Rules

Players must be age 16 or older.

Be “environmentally friendly”. Respect the wilderness terrain. Fix creeper holes when you make them. No floating trees, mass destruction, or torch spam in areas you do not intend to build in. If you need sand, mine under deserts / oceans, don't destroy a desert etc. Keep things looking pretty for future players.

Respect player claims. To claim land, please use torches and signs. You can share your location and register your bases and other town locations under “Register-Locations” on Discord.

No grieving, stealing, cheating, or client side mods. Exceptions for optifine, GUI alterations, inv tweaks and mini-maps. If in doubt, ask.

Keep chat family friendly and courteous. Keep language clean. No trolling / politics / religion / sexual etc.

Do not build within 200 blocks of other players without permission, this includes mining and building roads.

Spawn builds: You may build homes, shops, and install improvements (like roads, community farms, lights). Ask to build larger builds or redstone machines.

Redstone is cool, just don't lag the server.

No farms in The End without Owner permission.

No player base raiding. PvP must be agreed upon prior to battle.

Please link nether portals properly as explained in #resources.

FAQs

Can you make an exception for a player under age 16?

We will consider exceptions for players under age 16 if they are applying with a parent or guardian. In these circumstances, both applicants must prove they understand our rules in their application. The majority of us are ages 21+, so please keep that in mind.

What if I REALLY need sand, can I mine a whole desert?

We ask you be considerate and try your best to farm resources without destroying areas or biomes so that others may enjoy them.

Do I have to register my location?

Nope, but it’s in your best interest to.

Why can’t I make a farm in The End?

We want to limit The End to only one Enderman farm for two reasons:

We may decide to reset The End if it is gutted of resources

Enderman farms tend to be less effective in multiples.

Whitelist Application

Please provide enough information to use to get to know your personality! This is a privately owned server and we want to make sure people who play here with us will be mature and respectful to our friends and rules. We are only accepting applications that show effort and understanding due to our limited personal time and financial resources. We expect players to display a good grasp on our rules and a positive attitude so we feel confident you can play here without heavy moderation.

Minecraft Username: Age: How close should you build to other players? How do you claim land? Can you keep chat family friendly? How do you properly connect a Nether portal on a multiplayer server? (Read #Resources) How and when do you graduate from trial rank? What are you allowed to build at spawn? What interests you about Vanilla Latte? What would you like your new server friends to know about you?

For a Discord server invite send a Discord PM to username: coofffeeeeee#6508.

[toyhouse-dramas-archived]

hello. this is albinistic. I am requesting you remove these posts on me because a lot of them are completely false. particularily this post here: post/185278162096/im-the-anon-who-submitted-the-screens-from-the-af which goes itno invasive territory about my sexuality and twists my original words into things I never said. first of all, i am not gay because I am not male. i am an intersex person, and my condition is severe to the point where i am neither male nor female. (continued)

in the past i claimed to be male because it’s easier and I didn’t want the harassment of being an “other,” but in the last year i’ve been more open about it. neither me nor my partner have ever claimed that we’re not gay simply because we’re “feminine men.” i don’t consider myself gay because i am not male, and also because i am attracted to both sexes. i NEVER said i was only into guys - that anon is simply making stuff up about me. i have always been open about mostly being into women, in fact, i’m not interested in males who aren’t extremely feminine or even intersex. i feel hurt that this anon thinks my sexuality is their business, and this is the exact reason i don’t use labels or talk about it. i am tired of being harassed over something that really shouldn’t matter - it is no one else’s concern who i am attracted to. as for me “hating on same sex couples,” that never happened. while yes, i do have issues with the LGBT COMMUNITY and ONLY the community, i have never had issues with same sex attracted people, especially as i have previously mentioned, i am technically bisexual as well as neither male or female. that anon also went on to make up more, ridiculous lies like the fact that i didn’t accept my name being shortened. no, i only complained about it once because people were deliberately mocking me with it. my partner calls me “ni.” that was never the issue. i also ask you leave my partner out of this. and also please don’t refer to him as a “they.” my partner is extremely ill and the things he posts (especially about homosexuality) are all reflecting on how he feels about himself. he is self hating and a very troubled individual, and I am helping him to get better. shaming him for his illness is not going to help. he talks about hating gays because he believes he is gay and can’t cope with it. but what he posts online is not even a reflection of his true feelings, and a lot of it is taken out of context. as for MY feelings on LGBT, yes, I am against gender. i believe gender roles are harmful and i believe it’s wrong to label any non-beliver of gender “transphobic” even if they aren’t hating anyone. and we don’t hate anybody. i am even in a dilemma considering that i am neither male or female, but also don’t believe in creating new gender roles. as for the commission issue, YES, i know this is a BIG PROBLEM and trust me I feel awful about it. i am not lagging behind on my commissions because I am “lazy” or “hate my customers.” my health, mental and physical, is poor and has been declining. i have been doing everything i can to try and fix the situation, and I have been in regular contact with my customers, many of whom are still willing to wait for the art rather than be refunded. also, the girl i talked about in the discord screenshots who overpays art was a known problem user at the time. i was not the only person she targeted - she commissioned multiple people i knew and deliberately overpaid, only to demand it all back later. this was over a year ago, so hopefully this is something she no longer does. in addition, i am in contact with her and we are not on bad terms; i notified her that i would finish her art and she was ok with that. also, the reason i take new commissions is literally just to refund the old commissions which i cannot finish/the customer no longer wants. i also ONLY sell pixel icons (which i can get done fast, and while they are cheap, they sell well) and pre-made adoptable designs, neither of which are as time consuming as “full” pieces. i know i messed up, and i am doing everything i can to fix it. a year later, the situation has improved, but i still have long way to go.

Mod Edit: Alright so firstly, the asks about you were deleted except the ones with physical proof.

Secondly, your boyfriend having internal homophobia has nothing to do with his very obvious external transphobia. No one was “shaming his illness”, they were rightfully shaming his opinions on the trans community. You backed his claims in a thread, leading many to believe you both feel the same about them.

And thirdly, it’s not really your customers fault you didn’t correct the payment, refund it and request the proper amount or didn’t do the commissions. It’s good you’re working towards them, and shows you’re willing to change, but I don’t personally feel it’s fair to blame them on your poor planning. There’s a golden rule: don’t spend/use the money until you’ve sent your half.

Lastly, as already mentioned by a few unpublished anons, if you’re ending up on more than one drama blog for the same reasons, you need to do some self-reflection and consider that you aren’t purely the victim. The things you say, the hate you spill, it affects people and they retaliate for it. I honestly understand you have your own unique opinions and you want to express them, but ToyHouse is not the platform to do it publicly. There’s things on TH I disagree with to my core, but I know posting a thread publicly will only start arguments. It’s best to either find like-minded people and discuss it there, or accept the consequences of things such as blatant transphobia on public platforms. You mention feeling “hurt by what this anon has said” but see no harm in the things you say about others identities or sexualities. Respect is a two-way street.

I will cut the topic to prevent more asks, but you need to make the effort to take a step back and look at yourself. Another controversial spill that attacks people will just land you back on here again, as a lot of anons have hated you well before the PSA (as evident on other blogs). No amount of blog reporting will help that, I’m afraid.

I wish you well in your recovery to a healthier state, and suggest stepping away from a platform like ToyHouse if it’s only going to worsen it. I hope you can understand that.

[coin-river-blog]

The Ethereum blockchain can be frightening. Block explorer solution Scout aims to fight this fear and provide organizations with data-driven insights that may not be apparent on conventional block explorers.

Kuan Huang got into blockchain technology in late 2017. At that year's Devcon, he met some developers working on databases based on blockchain transaction data. Some companies, he noted, were even building applications on top of their databases to try to better understand the information.

"To me, that was actually a very stupid idea," Huang told ETHNews. "Why would anyone keep doing the same thing?"

Huang, who has a background in big-data analytics, naturally concluded that a solution was needed for the blockchain industry's data problem. What he proposed was Scout.

Blockchain's Data Problem

You might not think Ethereum has a data problem.

After all, block explorers, such as Etherscan and Etherchain, allow individuals to see a record of a blockchain's transactions. Generally free to use and easy to access, these explorers have become important components of a blockchain developer's toolbox. Instead of sifting through a litany of code to locate transaction details, which appear in different places on a ledger, individuals can see that information in consolidated form on an explorer's interface.

Though these tools come in handy when piecing together the different components of a transaction, explorers may not provide the data insights a company needs. Imagine trying to analyze companywide trends using such an interface.

Recognizing the limitations of block explorers, Kuan Huang and Chunxi Jiang founded Scout to help Ethereum-based organizations gain insights from their data. Like an "internal block explorer," Scout customizes data dashboards so that organizations can see the information relevant to them, whether that's economic activity or governance. Simply put, Scout aims to distill and translate data into a form most understandable and valuable to a company.

Scout in the Field

Huang and Jiang began bootstrapping the company at the beginning of 2018. In the first few months of the new year, Scout provided several blockchain organizations with a free prototype of its product, then called Supermax, so that it could gather feedback, learn what these companies needed, and arrive at a better idea of what it should build. By May 2018, Huang and Jiang knew Scout was the route to pursue, and the two have since worked to improve the platform's user interface and experience. Now, Huang believes, the product is "ready for market."

Although the premise of Scout is simple (data-visualization tools aren't novel by any means), the product has provided value to several Ethereum-based organizations. One example is Livepeer, a decentralized video-distribution platform.

Here's the short of how Livepeer works: Transcoders in Livepeer's network convert a broadcaster's video stream into another bit rate or packaging format. These individuals are nominated by token holders, called delegators, who stake their coins toward quality transcoders.

Huang said Livepeer was interested in, among other data points, ensuring transcoders were properly rewarded over time, tracking token distribution, and identifying top performers in the network. Scout has been able to assist Livepeer in accessing this information. Doug Petkanics, founder and CEO of Livepeer, told ETHNews that Scout "has been an invaluable tool for the Livepeer community." He continued:

"I, and many community members check [Scout] multiple times daily for a few reasons:

"1) It provides a nice, configurable dashboard for high level data about the use of the Livepeer protocol. For example how much token is currently staked? What is the current inflation rate? If there's an important parameter in your protocol you can easily add it to your dashboard.

"2) It has the power to record data at a point in time, and you can reference and query this data. Kind of like a database index. This is not functionality that the blockchain itself provides, so Scout lets you view how data changes over time, which is very valuable.

"3) Scout also indexes every single protocol transaction and event, and makes them searchable. So you can use queries in Scout to debug what users are actually doing in your protocol – when did they bond, when did they unbond, when did they submit jobs to the network, etc? It's a very nice transaction explorer."

One of Livepeer's community leads, who goes by "velvetdoctor" on the team's Discord server, also believes Scout "is pretty good in providing key stats," but occasionally "some of the metrics lag behind the actual network." That said, velvetdoctor asserts that if Livepeer did not have Scout, it would be "almost impossible for a non techie to find out about these metrics on a daily basis."

Livepeer is not the only group satisfied with Scout. Decentralized governance network Aragon has also teamed up with the block explorer solution to learn more about how its organizations are being used, participation rates (through voting, for example), and other data points. Brett Sun of Aragon told ETHNews that the team is "still getting [its] dashboards built but in a very quick amount of time (

Jorge Izquierdo, co-founder of Aragon, also chimed in, enthusiastically noting that Scout is "really great and we are really really happy with the dashboard they have built."

With the tools provided by Scout, though, one might wonder whether conventional block explorers are still useful. Why use a seemingly convoluted interface when a customized dashboard can be created with an organization's specific interests in mind?

Huang, however, does not see these traditional explorers as Scout's competitors. Everybody has access to a tool like Etherscan, and developers can visit this explorer to see everything about the Ethereum blockchain. Scout, on the other hand, is more focused. Because of this difference in scope, he maintains, Etherscan and Scout are solving different problems.

"The analogy is that those block explorers are Craigslist, and we are probably Airbnb," he said. "We only do one thing and make sure that thing is really, really [good]."

Dog Years Ahead

Huang and Jiang have made significant progress in a relatively short amount of time, transitioning their product from Supermax to Scout in less than a year, but this is just one step on Scout's roadmap. In the near future, Huang hopes to integrate with more companies and gain further insight into how these organizations use Scout. In the longer term, he aims to bring Scout to a level where other developers can build on top of it.

Ultimately, Huang envisions an interoperable future for blockchain technology. In three to five years, he thinks separate blockchain protocols will "talk" to one another through EDCCs (aka smart contracts). He explained:

"Imagine, let's say, how one is using Aragon to create an organizational blockchain. What that organization does is run a transcoder for Livepeer, and once they're making Livepeer tokens, they want … to use their tokens to borrow money on MakerDAO … [then] they use CryptoKitties as collateral to borrow money on the dollar. All these use cases will link these protocols together."

Organizations interested in integrating with Scout can join the team's waitlist, which, at this point, has around 10-15 companies on it. Although Huang would like more companies to use Scout, he and Jiang are only able to "serve one company at a time" due to their limited bandwidth.

Dani is a full-time writer for ETHNews. He received his bachelor's degree in English writing from the University of Nevada, Reno, where he also studied journalism and queer theory. In his free time, he writes poetry, plays the piano, and fangirls over fictional characters. He lives with his partner, three dogs, and two cats in the middle of nowhere, Nevada.

ETHNews is committed to its Editorial Policy

Like what you read? Follow us on Twitter @ETHNews_ to receive the latest Scout, block explorer or other Ethereum technology news.

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[squigglebrain]

WOW. Need To Find Me?

Okay wow... uhm, I am just sending a friendly reminder- I do not login to Tumblr much anymore. I just responded to a buncha private message type things VERY BELATEDLY (omg, my apologies!)... if you wanna find me, there’s better ways!

I am on Instagram a lot nowadays. I am trying super-hard, to get brave enough to SELL the crappy work I am doing as I teach myself polyclay. (having worked with Ceramics, it is SO DIFFERENT. Not EVEN kidding.) -and I *swear* they are getting better, but as I finish the less-than-stellar ones, there is a lag in what you’ll SEE from me... and I am terribly self-conscious right now about it. Even so, I have TWO lovely accounts on IG, depending on what you want to see:

<b>https://www.instagram.com/squigglebrain/ is my personal account.</b> You can see crazy or boring pics I post (every day usually) -from snaps of the pets, to the weather, to travel pics, and yes, sometimes Art pics. :) I will post when there is something interesting for you to see on the other account:

<b>https://www.instagram.com/brainjararts/ This is where, ostensibly speaking, my actual ART will be found.</b> Like, stuff that will show up in the Etsy art store which will be clearly marked in my profile and posts there. I am working on it. Be tender with me. ;) 

<b>Also, I hang out on Discord, because I like having a ‘live’ chatting venue.</b> You can ALWAYS email me (squigglebrain at the usual gmail.com everyone uses) and ask to have a link to my own chatroom, or join or invite me to chatrooms related to games we both play. :) I like that it can sit open on my computer, and we can easily share pics, comments, and all sorts of stuff that will BE there when I actually have time to pop in and look/respond. ;) which is often!

I do not hang on Facebook anymore- tho I do login and check for private messages now and again... my email is there if you’re friends with me, in my profile, so you can find me if you need me! I just... can’t take the politics. Lets me honest, I am one of those in the crosshairs of the current regime, and a lot of my friends either voted them in or were soo hell bent on not voting Hillary in they might as WELL have voted him in. Spare me a reply on that, I will delete it- My very LIFE is in the crosshairs, and I don’t give a CRAP about your problems with her, given he’s running around doing a million times worse, and he TOLD YOU HE WOULD. It is not a surprise. I’m not interested in debating it, I just want to LIVE, thanksverymuch, m’kay?

<b>I am on Flight Rising, as RottAndArtist,</b> but as I haven’t been active on Tumblr, I only now follow the apparently infamous ‘Drama Rising’- it is giving me a stomach ache already. (Hey, if you thought I posted that thing on there? NO. Not in a million years. Hit me up on Discord in private chat and I am totally cool with discussing it, okay? But I will NEVER call someone vicious names like that and anonymously in public it is even more uncool. If you don’t know what I am talking about, even better! Because I am handling it nicely on my own and with the help of friends, not by posting smack about someone anonymously. M’kay? Good!) You can totally hit me up to play there if you want, and I will help you get started, or whatever- or if you already play, poke me and we can be friends there. YAY!

<b>I am on LioDen, as RottAndArtist and (gasp) RottAndArtistII </b> (grins- they let you have two accounts, and I am sometimes less creative than you imagine) ...one of my Lion Kings is Good, and one Evil, hey- it works for me. I am usually on my Main (the first one, Surprise! not.) and if you play or want to play you can always hit me up THERE for help or friendship or clan stuff- as always, I love helping folks get started, or just making more friends in the game. :) On my Main there, I am a multiple-leaderboard player, so I am pretty proud of my hard work, considering I can’t buy GB like some, to pump my lions or anything- I have to work for it! Please DO pop in and say Hi if you play there. :)

So... assuming you at least scanned this... you know where I am to be found. :) You know if I follow you, I am in THEORY listening, but in REALITY I am not logging in and reading. *blush* so... uh... unless you’re one of the rare people whom I actually just go to your page in specific every so often because you’re “family” (close friends count!) I probably haven’t read anything, and I kind of suck, sowwy. :/ My Bad.

Also? I spam when I type. (regrets) :P sowwy.