#I tried to make it slower but using free online tools the only thing I could do was turn down the frame count

[emile-hides]

I cannot believe no one’s gifed POV Ramattra tilting your chin up with his staff yet. Must I do everything around here.

[adorable-elsanna]

I don't mean to be rude, and I apologize in advance if I am!! But why do you ship this nd WHY does this ship exist? Aren't Elsa and Anna sisters? And blood related at that. I don't want to hate on ships, you can ship washer you want as long as you aren't hurting anybody!! It's just that ships like these with incest startle me a bit. Maybe I'm just confused since I really shipped Kistof and Anna so I'm missing out on this? Ahhh sorry if this is annoying!! -confused anon

 Hi Confused Anon ( aren’t we all? ;) ),

Thanks for your polite ask, lol finally I get to dust off this blog’s ask box! :)) I’d love to respond with a whole essay xDD but I don’t really have time :’( so maybe I’ll just give a quick rundown for now. 

I might not be the most representative person to pose this question to lol because I am an outlier in general, meaning due to my life experiences, my development, my major in college, my deep meditation practice, and more, I do not abide by normative, dominant, hegemonic social structures and social constructs (nor do I actively resist them per se), so I am unfazed by anything. 

I started shipping this after I watched the first movie when it came out in Nov. 2013. One of my first posts on this blog, 7 years ago, was me explaining how I came to ship this (I had made the post private, but now you can read it here. Also this other post, but I wrote it when I was a college student, so it’s a little too analytical for my tastes now. Those were my views at the time). 7 years is a long time, so my mindsets and reasonings have changed, but all the reasons I had for shipping them from before are still with me today. 

I didn’t go into the movie with the intention to ship them, but while watching it, I picked up on a lot of chemistry between them because their interactions and even storyline were infused with strong popular romantic tropes, tropes that were used in other classic Disney movies themselves. I used to watch a lot of romantic comedies so I was very familiar with common romantic tropes. Of course, having came away from the movie having noticed all these romantic notes between them, I was a little confused and thought maybe it was just me. But when I went online to search a bit to see if others saw/felt what I saw, I found out it wasn’t just me! 

So one of the reasons why this ship exists is because people picked up on the romantic tropes that colored some of Elsa and Anna’s interactions, tropes that have usually only appeared between romantic couples, in films and in real life. Even if the creators didn’t intend to and didn’t actively put the tropes there, they are there. 

If we apply the principles of Buddhism (not the religion. Many ppl mistakenly practice things as devotional worship or for superstitious reasons. But if ppl really want to know everything about the mind, how the world works, the universe, who they are, about themselves and “other” people and why people do what they do, the meaning of life, true happiness, the end of suffering and stress and conflict, and consciousness, then forget psychology [not saying it’s not useful though]. Buddhism, or rather Buddhadharma, is the true science of mind, or at least the much more effective tool), it says that there is the law of cause and effect, the universal law. Everything that is created in the universe and each phenomenon that happens is the result of the momentary coming together of causes and conditions that make that thing happen. There are many many causes and conditions and intricacies and things are interconnected and interdependent, no one person can control something to happen (certain conditions have to be there for something to happen). Something can not come from nothing. If something happens, then certain causes and conditions have been created to bring that result. A seed was planted. If we plant an apple seed, what comes out will be an apple tree (provided the right conditions were met, like water, soil, sunlight, etc.). It will never come out as a banana tree. And so we can understand the underlying principle behind how each situation and phenomenon arises, about existence itself, why each thing exists. 

Now WHY did I go off on that tangent??? LOL All of this is to say that certain causes and conditions have been created to result in the effect of many people shipping Elsa and Anna together and there being a fandom for them. (These principles and explanations might seem very simple and like kindergarten stuff, but despite that, many people can’t accept it. ESPECIALLY when it applies to heavy stuff in their regular everyday life. Or even trivial things tbh lol) The last I checked, there were people from at least 26 different countries shipping Elsa and Anna together. 

Everyone thinks they see reality exactly as it is and takes it for granted, and thus attach strongly to the notion that they’re right. But if that’s the case, then why are there so many fights over who is right? So who is actually right? Even if someone were to follow the majority consensus or some popular, ingrained, long-standing ideas / societal rules, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re right. There are many cases of the blind leading the blind. People used to follow the geocentric model of the universe before they discovered heliocentrism. Ideas are always in flux and keeps changing and transforming, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, sometimes imperceptibly and sometimes conspicuously. If you ask 100 different people why they ship Elsa and Anna, you will get 100 different answers (with a lot of overlap of course) with unique spins on their reasons. Because in the world, each person sees reality through their own color-tinted glasses and filters and adherence to labels, concepts, beliefs, upbringing, etc. And then the person seeing “reality” through red-tinted glasses gets mad at the person seeing with blue-tinted glasses for not seeing the world how they see it (and gets frustrated not understanding why), and vice versa. In this scenario, what is actually best? To realize you’re seeing “reality” through color-tinted glasses, and so you should take them off and truly see reality without any filtered lenses. (This is a little off-topic, but I had to bring some Buddhism into this because first of all, dharma applies to everything lol, and secondly, Buddhism is all about dispelling confusion. There is definitely a way to see reality exactly as it is, it typically involves meditation.) 

Yes, Elsa and Anna are sisters. But I’ve never seen any pair of sisters act like them before (if there are, then that’s great!). I have a sibling myself, and we are very close, but we don’t act like how Elsa and Anna act with each other. With most siblings, I would say there’s a lot more joking around, teasing each other, sarcasm, pranks, and casual relaxed communication than the intense intimacy, deep eye-contact, and soul-bonding that Elsa and Anna share. Disney has portrayed many other sibling relationships before, but it seems like they tried something a little different with Elsa and Anna’s relationship that made it pretty easy for many people to ship them together. 

I ship Elsa and Anna together because their pure true love for each other transcends all labels, concepts, preconceived notions, and time and space. They are completely selfless when it comes to one another and that’s what true love means. They make each other better people and it empowers them to extend this selflessness toward other people. Their sacrificing themselves for each other and selflessness in action is true love exemplified. No one deserves Elsa more than Anna, and no one deserves Anna more than Elsa (speaking from my shipper heart xD). Confining and defining their love as just sisterly seems limiting and not allowing the full potential of their true, expansive, infinite love to manifest. (A sibling relationship is really beautiful, but it still has to be shaped and look a certain way, it has to fit into a particular mold and box and abide by certain conditions. Otherwise, as we have incontrovertibly seen, people will scream bloody murder and be squicked out and all hell will break loose.)  

We can even go one step further to say that the same similarly applies to people’s definitions, notions, concepts, ideas, and beliefs about love. They say this love is like this and that love is like that, this is what love should look like, this person can love this person but only if it’s like this and not like that, this is what it means to love and to be loved, etc. Again, it’s limiting, and placing restrictions on something whose essence is boundless. In Buddhism, with the realization of Enlightenment, one realizes that true love is selfless, unconditional, boundless, free, all-encompassing, nondual, timeless, compassionate, wise, nondiscriminating, infinite, universal, endlessly flowing, non-judgmental, creative, indescribable, and inconceivable. So THIS is the love that I see and ship between Elsa and Anna. I love their relationship as sisters, but their love is so grand that it cannot be contained inside that label, so it transcends and goes beyond any attempts to neatly define and characterize it.

It’s okay if incest ships startle you. Uncomfortable feelings come up whenever the ego experiences anything that challenges its worldview and everything it’s ever known and held to be true, and that prompts it to question and reconsider its mind-constructs. We have a knee-jerk reaction to grasp, hold, and attach to what we like, and to avoid, reject, and push away what we don’t like and what makes us feel uncomfortable. For what it’s worth, Buddhism tells about the cycle of life, death, and rebirth from beginningless time, so we have all lived infinite past lives and been each other’s lovers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, enemies, grandparents, etc. at one point or another. (Deep, but intriguing!, topics for another time.)  

If you really like to ship Krist0ff and Anna, then go ahead and ship happily. First rule of Buddhist meditation: Whatever you do, ONLY DO IT, 100%. ;) And if you don’t do something, then don’t do it, 100%. And then move on to the next moment. Be in the present moment. And remember that everything is changing moment by moment. Mind is changing moment by moment. Don’t need to anticipate the next moment. Who knows where our shipper hearts will take us. 

I like to ship people based on their chemistry and characterization. Elsa and Anna have a great true love story that is theirs and theirs alone. I don’t like to ship relationships that seem contrived, thrown in there for the sake of it, not fleshed out, lacking in substance, trite, and with characters who are underwhelming or underdeveloped. 

Lol no worries, this is not annoying, I’m sorry this is so long and that I took 7 days to get back to you. I wish I could give specific examples from the movies with beautiful gifs to explain why I ship them (I’ve probably written such posts in the past. Maybe I’ll come back to edit this reply one day), but I’ve gotta skedaddle! I’d like to hear your thoughts about my reply if you actually read this, so please send me a message in the ask box again if you can. 

Also I’m a girl if that makes any difference, but yeah anyway, skedaddle time, love you all! 

Oooooh I never finished replying to someone else’s ask box message asking me why I shipped them, it’s from years ago :’(, I started typing my reasons and saved it in my drafts, but it’s incomplete. But here’s what I wrote at the time!

1. I just love everything that Elsa and Anna feel and do for each other. Elsa isolates herself from Anna to keep her safe, and Anna persists in trying to get Elsa to open up to her and goes to find her when she runs away. They’re always thinking of each other and worrying about each other. They act selflessly for one another and their unconditional love is expressed so genuinely. This kind of devotion in any relationship is rare.

2. There was a lot of chemistry between them in the movie. At the coronation ball scene, I get that the creators were trying to depict awkwardness between them since they haven’t spoken in a long time, and Anna wanted reassurance that Elsa didn’t hate her so she was nervous about getting Elsa’s attention and approval, but the scene came off as Elsa being kind of suave and flirty and Anna being flustered because her crush just complimented her. Then Anna gave Elsa a playful smile when she was dipped upside-down as if she only had eyes for Elsa.

When Anna stares admiringly at Elsa as she stands atop the staircase, it was like a scene straight out of A Cinderella Story or Enchanted where the prince stares at his true love like she took his breath away.

[hookaroo]

Vocivore, Ltd. (29 of 40?)

Also on FFN and AO3 (ListerofTardis)

Tagging @ouatwinterwhump, @killian-whump, @sancocnutclub, @killianjonesownsmyheart1, and @courtorderedcake <3

***THE MOST WONDERFUL COVER ART BY @cocohook38 HERE!!!!!******

***Chapter 12 animation and art that will absolutely astound you!!!**********

***LETHAL Chapter 19 art in all of its BLOODSTAINED GLORY!!!!************

**POOR STABBED KILLIAN falling into the sheriff station! Ch. 7 & 23 art!!**

****KILLIAN AND HIS MASTER IN THE GORGEOUS CATHEDRAL!!!!!!!!!!!!    CHAPTER 1 ART THAT KILLS ME EVERY TIME I SEE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*********

*****AMAZING AND ALSO HEARTBREAKING COVER ART!!!!! MY POOR BOY, HELPLESS AND SCREAMING WHILE HE SLOWLY LOSES HIS GRIP ON REALITY… D: COCOHOOK38 IS TRYING TO KILL US ALL!!!!*************

***AAAAHHHH!!! THANK YOU MY WONDERFUL COCONUT FRIEND!!!!!!***

AN: Sorry for the longer wait this time! I've had an increase in work hours, which might necessitate slower updates from now on.

I decided to skip the "Killian meets Z" chapter because it's mostly just a repeat of everything we know already. I may post it later as a deleted scene, but for now, we're moving forward with the story!

Present (Friday, continued)...

"Crap."

Emma shot to her feet, the chair screeching back from the table as if sharing in her distress. Startled, Jones rose as well, though much more stiffly.

"Emma? What's wrong?"

"It's now; he's… come on."

She raced up the stairs with Jones following as best he could. Past bedrooms, a guest bathroom, and to a padlocked door at the end of the hallway. Emma fumbled with a set of keys, explaining,

"I think Killian is heading for wherever the monster controls the security cameras from. He's going to enact the plan today."

She opened the padlock and yanked the door open. Inside was a table laden with multiple laptops and two desktop computers, all of which seemed to be connected together via masses of coiled cables. As Emma frenzied among the mess, Jones asked,

"What's all this?"

"Borrowed some equipment. From friends… and possibly from Evidence at the station." She seemed relieved when Jones didn't comment. "I hacked into all the security cameras around town, or those connected to the internet, at least. I figured that's what the Master does, and it would probably be more effective to change the feed than to, like, hold a screen in front of the camera or something."

"Hold… a screen…?" The detective's confusion was clear, but Emma was too focused to explain. Deciding to trust in her expertise, most likely gained online during one of her many sleepless night recently, Jones watched for a moment as she continued booting up each computer. Then, impressed and a tiny bit disbelieving, he asked,

"What can I do to help?"

3 weeks, 4 days ago…

His third day a slave, Killian thought he was getting off easy. That is, as far as 'no additional injuries on top of those earned during his first 48 hours' easy. Maybe the two beatings the day before--one for neglecting to attach the provided chain to his collar overnight and the second as part of a 'Session' with the Master--had bought him a day's respite. It was nearing evening, and no one had appeared in the stall entrance to disturb his attempts at rest. A blessing, to be sure; every single inch of him hurt in some way or another, and Killian was not certain he would survive further violence.

As soon as that grim thought crossed his mind, a slave escort appeared. The withered man had no buckets in hand, which could only mean one thing. Killian stifled anxious qualms and began his mantra. Hope kidnapped, Hope tortured, Hope dead. That Killian was desperate. That Killian could obey the summons, could face more torture for the sake of a chance at gleaning any information on his little girl.

That Killian struggled to his feet, joints creaking audibly, dozens of knotted threads pulling tight within his flesh. The slave was impassive as he unlocked Killian's chain and then exited the stall, obviously expecting the pirate to follow. Killian pictured Hope's blood as he forced aching limbs into a mechanical, unsteady gait. Each step awakened a new anguish, in a different place each time. Despite his best efforts, dread soon had his pulse racing beneath swollen, bruised, and torn skin, doubling the throb, intensifying the quaking. What would it be this time? How long before he would scream?

He somehow made it to the church. And there the reluctance became almost a physical barrier blocking his entrance, and he only overcame it with sheer courage, virtually throwing himself inside.

Killian had not anticipated seeing Z standing within, beside the Master, near the altar. His foreboding quadrupled, and it was almost enough to send him lurching back the way he'd come in search of two more minutes of safety. Her presence could in no way signify anything good.

The charade. Cling to the charade.

"Master, please…" He cleared his throat, staggered closer, swimming through pools of red-shifted stained glass patterns on the floor. "My daughter… we had a deal."

Wearing an indulgent smile, the Master curled a tentacle, waving Killian onward. "Good evening, Tripod."

COME TO YOUR MASTER.

Killian stumbled on an uneven paving stone. "At least tell me if she's okay."

"Let's see how well you please me tonight."

Killian stopped at the foot of the stairs, out of the Master's reach. He cast a glance at Z, who was standing still, eyes fixed on the tilted surface of the broken altar. Killian caught a glimpse of metal, a flash of candlelight off of something sharp. He shuddered in apprehension.

"H… how can I be of service, Master?"

"Come join us." The Master indicated a spot on the floor at the altar's edge, between itself and the taciturn Z. Killian drew a calming, painful breath and then hauled himself up, one step at a time, wincing as the exertion aggravated barely contained injuries. He couldn't help cringing away from the Master's welcoming tentacle, which found him anyway, wrapping itself around his left forearm. The creature's clawed hand patted Killian's shoulder.

"I feel your fear, Tripod, and savor it. I will be honest with you: it is justified. I anticipate an unprecedented opportunity for you to serve me tonight."

Jaw tense, Killian avoided looking at Z's collection of implements on the altar. The Master noticed, and it chuckled.

"I have invited Z to dinner. I hope you don't mind."

"Whatever pleases my Master," Killian managed, his voice barely above a whisper. The Master ruffled its claws through his hair.

"Good little Tripod."

Tenderly, it guided him closer to the altar, until he stood leaning against it. The slanted surface came up to his breastbone, radiating cold from metallic decorations. The top was polished wood, and he could make out the dents and dings of age, as well as crusted dribbles of candle wax. His thighs pressed against a protruding design of intricate copper, sending a shiver up his spine. The restraining tentacle lifted his arm; he tried not to resist despite the sudden stab of panic.

"Yes," hissed the Master in his ear. "That's it."

It stretched Killian's arm forward and then allowed it to rest on the tabletop, making a slight adjustment to the angle so that, if Killian had still possessed a hand, his pinkie would have been contacting the surface, with the thumb above. He felt the crab-like pincer take position behind his elbow, adding to the restraint already provided by the tentacle. The Master clattered forward and pressed its thorax against his back. Its wrinkle-free waistcoat itched as it pinned him in place.

Killian could not even make a fist in reaction to his tension; the fresh brand still boiled with any movement of his thumb. His fingers twitched anyway as the Master's second tentacle snaked around that arm as well.

"Z and I have devised a gift for you," purred the Master. "To accommodate your deformity. It will require some precision, though… so do try and hold still, for your own good."

Wheezing rapid breaths, feeling the heat of adrenaline in his limbs, Killian could only watch as Z shuffled closer and balanced her tools within reach. She stood off to his right, at the narrow end of the altar.

"Z, let him see the device."

The silent woman held up a metal shape, something like a half-circle made of slender rods about the thickness of a ballpoint pen, maybe slightly more. There were, in fact, two separate pieces: a straight one, which tapered down to a wicked point, and then a long curve, of which one end was joined to the thicker end of the straight piece. The attachment point was two interlocking rings, so that the curve could twist and rotate all the way around the central line. The other, tapered end had a small hole drilled through it, and Killian surmised that there was some way to attach the currently free-floating curve's edge as well to make a continuous frame of metal. What he could not--or, perhaps, dared not--fathom was its purpose.

No spray bottle of disinfectant here. This time, it was straight iodine, poured from a beaker directly onto his outstretched wrist. The brown liquid streamed down the tilted tabletop like bloodstains, hearkening back to the altar's original purpose. Z drenched a cloth in the iodine and began to scrub roughly at the apex of Killian's captive wrist, then its base. And some instinctive part of him grasped the intent, even if his reasoning was slow to catch on. He lurched backward into the solid presence behind, an incomprehensible, pleading whine sounding from his throat. The Master tightened its grip, though it was in no danger of losing it.

Z continued her abrasive disinfection even as Killian struggled. Both sides of his scarred wrist now sported a bright and ominous yellow.

"Relax now, Tripod. You're being given a tremendous opportunity to serve me with your screams. You should not fight it."

He couldn't do this. Whatever had possessed him to think this scheme was in any way achievable? He took it all back. He had to escape, to save his own skin like the cowardly pirate he'd always been… He… he had to…

"Please… no…"

It was already too late. There was no escape. He was trapped in place, his Master's bulk crushing him against the table, both arms in a vise grip while tears of dread stained his face. The best he could hope for now was a quick death, because he certainly would not survive further mutilation of his… oh, gods, was that a hammer?

Another terrible thought struck as Z lay his arm back into position. Something that had inexplicably escaped his awareness during these past two days of torture: Emma was listening. She would hear the whole thing.

"I'm sorry… Swan…" The last word was cut off by an involuntary sob. The spike's tip pressed against his flesh, sharp and cold. Killian could only breathe in short, frantic little gasps, still thrashing in his Master's grip, but tiring rapidly. The hammer hovered, went through the motions without actually touching its target. A practice swing. Killian was trembling so badly that the precariously balanced set of tools rattled on the altar's surface.

Then it crashed down for real. Driving metal through skin and muscle into bone. Killian's first startled yelp was more of shock than true pain, as it took a second for his brain to catch up. Into the erupting fireball, the hammer fell again.

It was the Dark One, taking his hand with his own blade.

It was the clumsy efforts of Smee and the crew, trying to stop the bleeding and save his wretched life.

It was the dying stump, ballooned and pulsing with infection.

It was the first time he'd donned the hook over the raw flesh, the first time he'd bumped it against some obstruction, the first time he'd fallen on it.

The first time he'd killed with it.

Already, he had screamed himself hoarse, the Master moaning in ecstasy behind him, but the blows continued like lightning bolts, illuminating phantoms so bright that surely he must have a hand there after all.

Off target, the hammer slipped and smashed into blueberry flesh, and the stake jolted sideways with a crunch, and Killian felt himself falling until he was caught by the collar and splashed with water while the hammer lay dormant, and he couldn't even make sense of words he knew he should recognize because his only focus could be the searing cold metal driven halfway through his wrist.

The hammer resumed its grisly task while Killian's cries grew feebler. He drifted in a haze of anguish, half-fainting, shocks of pain sizzling up his arm. His dead weight sagged against the exultant Master behind him as the whole church seemed to spin on an axis.

Killian didn't feel a difference when the spike broke through the skin on the pinkie side of his wrist. The only clue was a minor change in sound: the metal had entered the wood of the altar. One more blow, one more wooden thunk, and Z lay the hammer aside.

And then she yanked upward on his tormented arm, and Killian gave voice to one more noiseless cry as the impaling device shifted inside him before squeaking free of the altar.

His eyes were closed and nothing could make him open them to see the ghastly damage. Even when Z began manipulating the attached ring, pulling brutally and drawing more tears of pain, he kept them squeezed shut. His hand, too, remained balled into an unyielding fist despite negligible protests from his branded palm.

This was it. This was his life now. He would never again feel happiness. Contentment. A moment free of pain. Forevermore, his existence would consist of blazing agony.

There was an audible snap as the free corner of the ring found its bloodstained attachment point. The straight post shifted again, Killian whimpered once and dove headfirst into black oblivion.

This time, the Master let him fall.

[masonr326915884-blog]

Mp3 Music

Using Mac OS X's powerful built-in media encoding tools, giant AIFF audio recordsdata can be rapidly and simply converted to compressed top quality M4A audio, ready to be used on in iTunes or an iPod, iPhone, or elsewhere. Beatnik's Rich Music Format (RMF) is an HTML-primarily based format that uses scripting languages (like JavaScript) to synchronize interactive soundtracks. RMF makes use of a complicated assortment of MIDI sounds (some proprietary) mixed with user-configured samples. The result is excellent sound quality in extraordinarily small recordsdata that download fast. Beatnik is another choice for including interactive (person-triggered) sound effects to an online page. Hamster is a free audio converter that installs shortly, has a minimal interface, and is not arduous to use. Step four: Click on the "Convert" button to show AIFF file to MP3. After that you could test the email handle for the output MP3 information. When you get the MP3 information, you can use them for MP3 players or other units. Not only can Hamster convert multiple audio files in bulk, but it might merge the files into one, much like Freemake Audio Converter. Select the AIFF, AIFC files in iTunes library, click File >> Convert >> Create AAC Version, Create MP3 Model or Create WAV Model. After that a brand new copy of the AIFF, AIFC files will be saved to iTunes library as.M4A,MP3 orWAV files. re analyse that crate and it is best to find all all the things back to normal without having to recreate a new crate and find all of the music recordsdata for that crate.

I tried creating a brand new audio profile for mp3 and I get the identical results above. WMA, MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC, OGG, AIFF, Apple Lossless format and bunch of others. Happily, audio file compatibility with DJ software program has grow to be less of a concern lately, although there are still some things to be careful for. Of the 11 software program titles I seemed over—9 deck-type DJ programs plus Ableton Live and iTunes—7 of them supported all the main audio codecs. An advantage of exporting to AIFF is that lyrics or album art could be added to the file in iTunes, which isn't doable with WAV information. The application supports over 70 audio and video codecs, including AVI, MP3, FLV, MP4, MKV, MPG, MOV, RM, 3GP, WMV, WebM, VOB, FLAC, AAC, M4A. Even after this, the aif information can't be performed by Totem, Parole, Xine, DeaDBeeF, Banshee or VLC; even in Audacity the sound is badly distorted, identical to in Audacious. However mplayer (SMPlayer, Gnome Participant, Mplayer) can play them simply advantageous. Essentially the most glaring and necessary distinction between free and for-pay software is velocity of conversion. Throughout testing, Freemake, the very best free audio converter software program, took four instances so long as the fastest program, Swap, to transform a 625MB WAV file to MP3. The opposite free converter we tested, File ZigZag , is an internet converter instrument that was 30 occasions slower than Change at converting our test file. It additionally limits you to one file over 180MB per day and 2GB or smaller recordsdata. If it is advisable to continuously convert recordsdata or numerous recordsdata directly, we advocate spending between $20 and $30 on a program that doesn't crash usually and can batch convert multiple information directly. Liquid Audio particularly targets the wants of the music trade by "providing labels and artists with software program tools and applied sciences to enable safe online preview and purchase of CD-high quality music." LiquidAudio is not only a file format; it is a professional utility for controlling music sales and distribution. It is rather efficient in what it sets out to do, however it is not an all-function web audio answer. MP3 file format is a well-liked audio coding format which was designed by the Shifting Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It is a lossy format which makes use of a form of lossy data compression. A MP3 file has a relatively smaller dimension and generally used to steam or store audio. It may be transferred and played on most digital audio gamers. Customers of Home windows 7, 8, 10 or more ought to make use of Windows Media Participant 12. Windows XP and Vista customers can simply refresh to Home windows Media Player eleven. So, changing AIFF file to MP3 is the only option if you wish to save your disk area and play aiff to mp3 converter online anywhere anytime. AIFF MP3 Converter is a downloadable Windows-based mostly utility that serves users as a media conversion utility.Step 2: After which you could click on the "Convert information to" to decide on the format you need to convert, you can select the MP3 format from Music information so as to convert AIFF files into MP3 format instead. After selecting the right profile, click on the Browse button and select your vacation spot folder and the title of the brand new MP3 file that might be created.

[add11281]

Whelp, Here Goes Nothing

I’ve been thinking about doing this for a long while now, but I honestly don’t think I am nearly interesting enough for people to want to read my spaced out ramblings.  I figure, If I can use this as a therapeutic tool to help myself get over the many, many waaaay too many issues I have, then so be it.  

I guess I should start with a backstory, because everyone LOVES a backstory right?  My mother put me on my first diet when I was ten.  I wasn’t even that chubby, just a little huskier than most. I just needed to be encouraged to exercise more.   But my mother grew up in the era where everything revolved around women and girls being thin. That was the most important thing.  She would do things like tell me if I lost 10 lbs she would by me 3 or five new outfits, but would fail to follow through when I lost the weight.  She would do the same thing with my sister and I with our fingernails.  If we grew our fingernails, she would buy us a ring and again, failed on the follow through.  That is probably why I get my sense of self worth from my pant size.  My sister was a very talented athlete, blonde with green eyes, which was my mothers ideal.  The only problem, was that my sister was a tomboy, who preferred baggy jeans and sweats instead of dresses and make up.  Mom always wanted a cheerleader.  instead she got us, a tomboy and a chubby goth kid.  

As an 8th grader, I tried out for the girls softball team, but during initial physicals, a Sipowicz looking, balding, borderline morbidly obese coach told me I was fat and probably not going to make the team.  Instead of using that to push me to try harder and show what I could do, it had the opposite affect and made me want to not bother.  Then came a whole slew of incidences in high school which were mentally scarring, like the star pitcher on the baseball team who would bark at me like a dog when I passed by.  (That guy is still a douchebag).  

Then when I was a sophomore, I joined the girls soccer team on a whim and lost a bunch of weight.  It was amazing.  I was slower than a turtle running through peanut butter, but I did it.  I had no idea how to dress my new body.  When I tried out the 90′s trends at the time, I felt ridiculous, like I was trying waaay to hard.  I gained confidence, but still had a hard time understanding why anyone would want to be friends with me.  I was amazed when people actually started saying hello to me in the halls at school.  fast forward a few years and I started studying martial arts.  It was the lifeline I needed at the time.  It made me feel like the badass I never was.  The weight stayed off.  I got married at 26 and had my girl at 27.  I became obsessive about working out and what I was eating.  I was fortunate that my husband at the time made a good living so I could stay home with the baby.  I worked out for 2 hours a day and joined the biggest loser club online and followed their meal plans.  Boy, did that get boring in a hurry.  

My husband and I didnt work out, and i turned to exercise as a way to release frustrations and tension and anger and hurt.  I had a job that wa fairly physically intensive.  I should point out that I have by no means ever been.  The lightest I have ever been in a size 10 and 138 lbs at 4′11.  

I started dating my current husband at a size 12, and being that size was frustrating.  I have know my now husband for going on 16 years, which was even before I knew the previous husband.  We were always friend but there was something more and we both new it. it was just never the right time, until it was.  Soon after we got married,   I was fired from my job for low sales standards, which devastated me and started me on the depression spiral.   I got a part time job at my favorite gym which I thought “hey, cool, Ill work out more since I work here and get a free membership”....WRONG.  you never want to spend more time in your workplace than your want to.  and thats when it happened.....The weight really started to creep up...I mean like really creeping up.  I was so happy to be married and wanted to cook all of the yummy things that my husband liked.  Food is my love language, I just did not know how to say no.  

I think that is enough for now.  

[aion-rsa]

The Nintendo Fan Games That Tried to Revitalize Pokémon, Metroid, and Super Smash Bros.

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In 2016, Milton Guasti’s Metroid 2 remake (AM2R) was released online after a decade of work. One day later, Nintendo sent DMCA takedown requests to the websites that hosted it. Many fans were shocked by the decision. Guasti seems more surprised by the efficiency of it.

“Throughout the years I started seeing that [a takedown] could be possible,” Guasti recalls. “What I was not expecting was that it happened so fast.”

New fan-made gaming projects are developed and distributed all the time, and often embraced by studios, but as those in the creative community know, Nintendo has historically been adamant about protecting its properties and taking down fan games. From novelty game mods to NSFW art of Bowser, there’s no guarantee that fan creations based on Nintendo games will survive online for long.

So what makes someone spend years on a game that may only be widely available for one day? For Guasti, it was the chance to learn programming within a fascinating framework.

“I decided I wanted to practice a little bit of programming, so I downloaded GameMaker and did a couple of mini-games here and there just to learn a little bit of how game logic and design are done,” Guasti says. “Since most of the effort in designing something is getting the first couple of decisions, remaking something that’s already done seemed like a good idea to save time. I had recently played Metroid: Zero Mission on the Game Boy Advance [a remake of 1986’s Metroid], and since there was no similar treatment for Metroid 2, I said, ‘Well, this is a black and white game. Whatever I do with ripped sprites might be better than this. So I guess I can make a Metroid game.'”

For Guasti, the appeal of making his own Metroid game was more about the design of the franchise than his overwhelming love for the series. He described himself as more a Metroid “enthusiast” than a “hardcore fan” when he started working on the game. For others looking to learn how to develop and design games, the choice of which game to use as a starting point comes down to franchises they’ve always loved.

“It was my childhood dream to make my own Pokémon game,” says fan developer Involuntary Twitch. “Thus began my nine-year journey with fan game development as a hobby.”

That hobby became Pokémon Uranium, a Pokémon fan game the size of a major franchise installment. Involuntary Twitch wanted it to feature all of the things that she loved about Pokémon games: “pixel art, exploring, discovering new creatures, and uncovering mysteries.” For the many ways that Uranium was designed to be an homage to Pokémon, there was at least one element Twitch hoped to improve.

“I have been my entire life saying that Pokémon can and probably should do a little bit better with the stories,” Involuntary Twitch says. “I don’t think Pokémon needs to tell this grand, epic story with all these plot twists and betrayals and darker themes…but I think that what makes a good story is just the feeling that your actions actually matter, that the things you do are instrumental to the outcome of the plot.”

As the tale of a young trainer whose mother was lost in a nuclear accident roughly 10 years before the mysterious appearance of radiated Pokémon coinciding with the construction of a new power plant, Uranium‘s plot is darker, more complicated, and perhaps a bit more mature than what many of the games in the Pokémon franchise aim for. It’s also a big part of the reason why Uranium was widely hailed as a breath of fresh air for a franchise that largely sticks to the same formula put in place in the ’90s.

Yet, the story of Uranium that many more people are familiar with is what happened after the game was released. Much like AM2R, Uranium was hit by DMCA takedown requests issued by Nintendo shortly after the project’s 2016 release. After over nine years of work, Uranium‘s widespread availability could be measured in hours. Once again, the move did not come as a complete surprise.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“I think our mentality was that we’d already had multiple playable releases out of the game, and so whatever its ultimate fate may be, we owed it to ourselves,” says Involuntary Twitch of the decision to continue working on the project despite the likelihood that it would eventually be taken down. “This is the single biggest project that any of us had ever done in our entire lives…So, we owed it to ourselves and we owed it to the people who were excited to see this game fully realized to see it all the way through the end”

So why didn’t Involuntary Twitch and her creative partner JV just make a copyright-free clone of a Pokémon game? 

“I did consider it, but I mean, at that point, we were in too deep,” Twitch says. “Literally every single part of the game would need to be thrown out and reconstituted to the point where it would be unrecognizable. And in exchange for doing that, we would get way less exposure, and we would basically just be filing the serial numbers off something that’s meant to be our love letter to a franchise…I feel like doing that would’ve drained what drove us to make this game in the first place, which was our love for Pokémon.”

That certainly seems to be the dilemma. Many Nintendo fan creators are often inspired by their love for Nintendo games, but there are times when Nintendo can be hard to love. The company will go years without even acknowledging beloved franchises but it’ll immediately litigate when fans pursue the projects and ideas Nintendo won’t. 

Those bespoke projects are often designed to appeal to a section of the fanbase Nintendo has sometimes ignored. Uranium featured a more mature story not commonly seen in Pokémon games. AM2R focused on one of Nintendo’s most complex (and often ignored) franchises. And in terms of notorious Nintendo fan projects designed to address something that was missing, few titles are as compelling as Project M: a Super Smash Bros. Brawl mod designed not to reinvent the wheel but simply make that game feel closer to its predecessor.

“Brawl took away almost everything that many people enjoyed about Melee from a gameplay design perspective,” says former Project M webmaster Taylor “Warchamp7” Giampaolo. “The floatier gravity, the slower gameplay, the removal of many character control nuances like dash dancing and wave dashes, and random factors like tripping that took control away from the player all contributed to a game we found less enjoyable. Project M‘s main goal was to bring back the elements of Melee that we all enjoyed like the faster pacing and balance of risk/reward.”

On the surface, a mod like Project M probably comes across as the work of a fanbase that felt Nintendo had gotten it wrong. Yet, that’s not necessarily the case. If anything, the game is more often talked about as a kind of “What if?” scenario designed to explore what may have happened if the competitive community that embraced Melee had become the primary audience for future installments.

“Project M is definitely our alternate take on what we’d like the series to look like,” Giampaolo says. “Melee‘s competitive nature is sometimes considered a happy accident, and I’d say Project M is a deliberate execution of those competitive aspects.”

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Melee‘s expansive multiplayer modes make it clear the game was intended to be played competitively between friends, but what many believe Nintendo did not necessarily anticipate was how the game would be embraced by more “hardcore” fighting game fans. What was essentially conceived as a Nintendo mascot brawler became a mainstay in the competitive fighting game community, and some of the things that made the game so different are also what made it popular among the genre’s most dedicated fans.

“Melee‘s mechanics offered an extreme freedom of movement that provides limitless options in various situations,” says Smash Bros. modder Dan Salvato. “I think most notably, simply moving your character around on the screen is extremely fun in itself. Most fighting games are balanced around what you can’t do in any given situation, but Melee kind of rips out the brakes and hands the keys to the player. You might get a lot of Melee die-hards giving you a list of reasons that Melee is ‘better,’ but I think that it just provides a different experience that captures a different audience of players.”

As a look into a kind of alternate reality for the Smash Bros. franchise, it’s easy to again wonder why the Project M team simply didn’t create their own Smash Bros.-like game based on Melee‘s mechanics. Much like with Pokémon Uranium, the decision to stick to the Smash Bros. name and the many copyright conflicts that come with it can be attributed to a combination of love and logistics.

“Everyone on the Project M team was incredibly talented but a lot of members had skill sets that were specifically tailored for modding Brawl,” Giampaolo says. “Some of the people that did programming on the team didn’t know any normal programming languages; they only knew assembly and had learned it through modding. Some of the animators didn’t have any experience with industry animation tools; they only knew how to use the community-created ones designed for Brawl‘s file formats. I consider their work even more impressive because of that but it means they wouldn’t have had an easy transition to making a ‘real’ game at the time.”

The Project M team was aware of the risks associated with the game they were making, and, as such, decided to institute a series of rules that they hoped would help protect the game against an immediate takedown. For instance, they encouraged people to play a “hackless” version of the mod that still required them to purchase Brawl, and they didn’t add new characters to the mod that weren’t already present in Brawl in some way.

In a way, the guidelines worked. Project M wasn’t hit with an immediate takedown request, but the constant threat of future legal actions and the desire to start on an original project accelerated the end of its development. But before that happened, Project M was embraced by the Smash Bros. competitive community who began using it and other modded versions of Smash Bros. as the feature attraction in many tournaments.

It doesn’t seem many of those fans expected Nintendo to embrace Project M or officially support any Smash Bros. mod. However, many of them wanted Nintendo to at least recognize their passion for the series’ competitive elements and how many felt Melee, in particular, best represented those qualities. There’s a degree to which the competitive Smash Bros. community lived in that same “under the radar” territory that Project M tried to exist in, and there’s a degree to which the competitive Smash community just wanted to be seen as fans who built a tournament scene based on love and shared passions. When Nintendo finally noticed them, the real trouble started.

“Over the years, the most community backlash hasn’t come from Nintendo not caring, but it has come from Nintendo interfering,” Salvato explains. “I think a decade ago, the Smash community felt more desperate for Nintendo’s acknowledgment…but once Nintendo stepped in, though, all of their regulations followed, and the Smash community started to question whether they actually wanted it.”

In 2020, Nintendo sent a cease and desist letter to a beloved Smash Bros. tournament that planned to use a Smash Bros. Melee emulator to host a digital event during the Covid-19 pandemic. The letter even targeted the event itself, which meant the hosts couldn’t simply feature the latest Smash Bros. game instead. After years of being ignored, the Smash Bros. competitive community was dealing with the fallout of being seen. While Nintendo has helped event organizers in the past, it was that lingering threat of things quickly going the other way that so often made the relationship uncomfortable and, at times, impossible.

Guasti can tell you more about Nintendo’s history of acknowledging the work of fans in their own strange way. A year after shutting down AM2R, Nintendo revealed and released an official Metroid 2 remake for the 3DS called Metroid: Samus Returns. Given that the franchise had been dormant for some time and that an unofficial remake of that same game had just been taken down a year before, the reveal of Samus Returns came as a shock to many, including Guasti.

“It was quite a surprise. Nobody saw it coming,” Guasti recalls. “Once I finished seeing the trailer, it was like, ‘Hmm, so that’s how the Metroid fights look with a budget.'”

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Samus Returns and AM2R are actually quite different in terms of their visuals and mechanics, but in a way, the differences made the speed at which the latter was taken down before the former was released that much more surprising.

“If you think about it, it’s super fascinating,” Guasti says. “These two points of view of the same story have been developed in parallel. At least one of the parties didn’t know that the other existed. Even if there are a couple of elements in common, the way that they conveyed the game feel and the whole environmental design, how Samus moves around and all of the elements in the design are completely different.”

Maybe there’s an alternate timeline where the differences between the two games meant both were allowed to exist, but Guasti doesn’t seem to dwell much on that. As strange as it may seem for someone who spent so many years of their lives on a project they couldn’t profit from, Guasti seems satisfied with how things worked out.

“I can’t be mad,” Guasti says. “I reached the audience that I wanted to reach. I learned everything that I wanted to learn from that…I’m really happy how that stage in my life turned out.”

Considering that Guasti’s work on AM2R helped him find a job in the video game industry where he later worked on the Metroidvania title Ori and the Will of the Wisps, you may think that the fate of AM2R is only easy to accept given that it led to a career and all of the benefits that come with that. Yet, there are many creators who share the belief that the real value of their work was the chance to share something with other fans like them.

In fact, some wouldn’t even mind if Nintendo essentially released the games they worked on without even giving them direct credit, much less a check.

“I would be ecstatic,” Giampaolo says of the possibility of Nintendo releasing its own Project M without acknowledging the mod’s creators. “We created Project M because it was the game that we wanted to play and it is, to date, my favorite entry in the genre. I’d love nothing more than for more players to get to enjoy that.”

Of course, Project M is a mod to an existing Nintendo game, and its creators were always aware of the fine line they were walking when working on it. They also got to end it on something closer to their own terms, and the mod is still massively popular among its intended fanbase to this day. But what about Involuntary Twitch whose project was hit by one of the swiftest and most complete takedowns in fan game history? How would she feel if the next Pokémon game was essentially a copy of Uranium but she received no credit?

“I’d be thrilled,” Twitch says. “I wanted to play one of my own games on a Nintendo handheld my entire life. And even if they didn’t put my name in the credits, I would still know that I was there, that I had inspired some type of its DNA. That, to me, would be enough. I mean, I am not here to chase clout. I don’t make fan games for attention. I make it because I like to do it and it’s a fun hobby for me.”

While there is something exceptional about those who create to fulfill a vision and share it with the world, this mentality seems to be the lifeblood of the fan game community.

“The modding mentality is that you have a community that loves a game so much that they want to extend its lifespan and help each other enjoy the game even more,” Salvato says. “In my experience, mods are always full of a lot more love for Nintendo than they are of disappointment. Modders are proud and passionate, and they love what they do.”

You could argue this love is rarely reciprocated by Nintendo, but some creators suggest we may need to change our perception of success by recognizing that completing and sharing these projects can be more important than profits and fame. 

“I hope that it brought them some joy because, to me, creating stuff is something that defines who I am,” Involuntary Twitch says. “I hope that it can help other people to find out who they are and develop their skills and find a place where they belong.”

Why does someone spend years of their lives on a project that can’t make money, will probably be shut down, and will never be embraced by the company that inspired them? The answers vary but seem to often come down to a surprisingly simple philosophy. You can spend years waiting for Nintendo to do make something, or you can spend that time doing it yourself and letting the memories, the love, and the quality of the games justify it all.

The post The Nintendo Fan Games That Tried to Revitalize Pokémon, Metroid, and Super Smash Bros. appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[st33d]

Sandman

I’ve tried a lot of sandbox games over the past year. Mostly driven by acquiring a PC and leaving my Mac to its scheduled obsolescence. Playing games on a Mac is like playing Doom on a calculator. You celebrate that it works, it actually works, but it usually fails to be more than a proof of concept. When I switched back to a PC I discovered an entirely new realm of stubborn design. At least it wasn’t getting slower with each update and it deigned to play all manner of toys. Being quite turgid for roleplaying games I set about catching up with every RPG the Mac had denied me and checked out some more for good measure.

A common feature I discovered in many of these games is what I call the Back Breaker. You lift the game up high, then crash it down over your knee, broken. You are now free to explore the game how you choose - all of its secrets are laid bare. A lot of people get very upset at the inclusion of Back Breakers in what they hope will be a game with an ever ascending skill requirement. The notion that the audience is primarily there to explore is an insult - where, they ask, is the game? Personally I like this feature, I like that the end game is to become a god. This is why a lot of you will disagree with my assessments.

Skyrim

The sticking point for many people with this one is the combat. It’s dour grey-brown landscape invites a comparison to Dark Souls (I’ll get to that one in a bit) so people like Matt Lees will remark that Skyrim is an inferior counterpart. If you’re looking for tight combat in Skyrim, then like a 1st edition iPhone 5, you’re holding it wrong.

It insists you take it seriously over an unskippable introduction to the most tired hook that any roleplaying game can throw - the prison break. After shaking your screen as hard as it can with an assault by a dragon you are thrown into a scant and confusing interface in a land of ugly robotic people who are super fussy about what time they’re willing to sell things. On my 1st playthrough it got dark, so dark I couldn’t loot the mages I was killing for their expensive robes. I quit and rerolled a khajiit, purely because the wiki told me they had nightvision. It wasn’t until much later I discovered that there were many means of creating light, some of them causing fantastic AI behaviour (I nicknamed the spell Magelight; aggro-ball). Some short way into the terrible main quest line I thought, “sod this”, and went in search of the mage college to learn how to blow things up like some of the monsters were doing. This haphazard adventure was some of the best gameplay I’d ever encountered. A scared lowly girl-cat, picking her way through a hostile landscape in hope of learning real magic. Typical that when I finally arrived at the college I encountered the first blatant design wall in the shape of an unclimbable pillar that the college sat on. I barely had the mana to cast the spell that would prove me worthy to train there. A few hours later I was the archmage of the college. It would take many more hours before I mastered glitch-riding: taking the cereal box collision space of my horse and rubbing it against the prettiest parts of the scenery until it yielded to let me ride vertical. Out of the many hours of play the only real low point was getting turned into a vampire, I had to look up a wiki on how to cure it and reload many times because the quest to stop vampirism is broken.

There are many Back Breakers in Skyrim - I chose twin dremora lords that I chain-summoned to lock up the AI. But truly it is Skyrim’s pretty mountains and their unresolvable collision meshes that are the best. Only after hours of play does one develop an art for sniffing out details that defy edge-case-programming. Skyrim is a perfect mess. I know why they keep re-releasing it, they got lucky. One need only play the Dragonborn DLC to see Skyrim at its worst. It is a hard game to recommend, for it is not really a game, it is a thing both ugly and beautiful.

% out of 10

The Witcher 3

“Stick with it”, they say. Few games deserve such an epithet as this one. The controls are fiddly. One’s inventory is so dense with options that I didn’t realise that my potions refilled themselves until I’d nearly finished the game. After which my character sported full-body-priapism as I quaffed every decoction available. The turning point from hating this game to loving it was a side quest where a character caught Geralt off guard when being subject to the witcher’s advice - the townsfolk declared him a freak not because he was like Geralt, but because they were intolerant of homosexuals. I then got drawn further into the man’s drama. Every single story this game presents is trying to be Not So Simple. It’s a manifesto that leaks into the game’s bestiary that tells you not only what a monster likes for dinner, but your best tactics for killing it. But then, it’s Not So Simple as killing a monster, there is always another layer to each story.

It took at least three score hours of gameplay before I started skipping some of the many cutscenes. One of them was the infamous sex-on-a-stuffed-unicorn. It was a fault of the main storyline being so lackluster. I never really cared for Ciri, I found her even more fiddly to control than her tutor. But the extra layers that surround it: the Bloody Baron, stupidly shagging Keira Metz, the numerous detective scenes - they all carry this game. It is a shame it takes a few hours for it to reveal itself.

I must commend the map design for being sensible enough to be broken into several parts. You first explore a tutorial village before moving into war torn Velen and its haunting soundtrack. Here you work until you can gain passage to the north, the islands, and your home. Many sandboxes simply give you one map to conquer and contort it to stop you wandering into the final challenge. It’s refreshing to move on to a clean map, full of new challenges and surprises.

I couldn’t be arsed to play Gwent.

Trophy out of Archgriffin

Zelda: Breath of the Wild

This game has three stages: Delight, Depression, and Exploration.

Delight

Oh wow, there’s so many things to do. And so many things interact with one another. The sense of discovery comes not only from reaching new locations, but also finding new ways for elements to interact. Of course wood burns. Of course burning creates an updraft. Of course metal conducts electricity. Even after many hours of play there are still new things to find. So strange that the game is as dense as it is... empty.

Depression

Ugh, I don’t have a horse and I’m in yet another blank area. Ugh, I lack just enough stamina to climb this mountain, I’ll have to start all over again. Ugh, I can’t stay in this area because I take damage and the food I eat to stop it only lasts ten minutes. Ugh, I complained about all of this online and everyone keeps saying, “I don’t have a problem, the game works fine for me, Git Gud.” As often as I meet people who have played this game in excess of 100 hours, I also meet people who have played it for less than 10. If you are unlucky, if you don’t make the right connections, if you don’t stumble upon the right thing, this game is truly depressing. Made more so by the amount of people who cannot fathom why anyone would have trouble with the game. And yet there are many that do. It is not really that they need to be better at games, it is merely because they have not found the Back Breakers. Or worse, they do not appreciate them.

Exploration

After needless hours of collecting (grinding) you find yourself in possession of armour. You upgrade the armour again and again and suddenly the cloud of depression is lifted (if it was ever there). You are free to explore any edge of the island, you simply need to wear the right threads. At this stage of the game you have found many secrets but still keep finding more. Korok seeds, the OCD baiting puzzles, become a delight to find. It’s hard to remember the game ever being frustrating, but it remains in the back of my mind. Zelda BotW has a hump, a hump that some people will feel very aggrieved to surmount. Do not be surprised when you hear of someone bouncing off this game - it really is torture for people with precious little play time or patience.

Perhaps I should say something about the shrine dungeons or the 4 beast dungeons. They exist. There, I said it.

96 out of 120

Path of Exile

I tried this many years ago on my Mac using some sort of Windows executable wrapper. It did not work. I tried again when I got my new PC, I was underwhelmed. I tried yet again two weeks ago - holy shit this is the best action RPG I’ve ever played. The fact that it’s also free is sort of a weird blessing. You can only buy cosmetics and extra slots, so it even has a total lack of pay-to-win going for it. At least they get to keep expanding and updating it, which is probably why my recent play through was so smooth.

Diablo 2 is one of my all time favourites. It’s a concise loop of murder, loot, sell. But not without flaws. It has cruft, tedium, and imbalance in spades.

Path of Exile shuffles the formula and bets the whole thing on loot. Skills are loot. Money is loot (you pay with scrolls and item modifying tools, no gold). Equipment is loot. Yet playing it like Diablo is quite a silly thing to do - you get almost nothing from items you try to sell to vendors, so you no longer make trips back and forth with junk items. Leveling up is spent on a massive passive skill tree shared by all the classes, so the game sees no need to forestall leveling because it’s not the gatekeeper of mechanics. The items are. This occurs by way of gems that you socket into items, a bit like Diablo 2 and 3, but instead of boring damage bonuses you get entirely new mechanics. If you play with several characters in the same league they can share these items as well (providing they are strong enough to wield them). A mere ten levels into the game I had a full on rave of undead surrounding my witch character like she was the hottest new DJ at a halloween party.

I refrained from playing on hardcore because the game is online only and my internet sucks, but the game does boast a challenge that is mandatory hardcore. A multi-part dungeon that rewards you with a new section for your skill tree. Complete it without dying and you get to specialise. This is further complicated by deadly treasure rooms you must salvage keys from in order to unlock the many chests at the end. This was quite an exciting challenge with real stakes and real swearing when I let my greed get the better of me.

So what of its flaws? It takes a few goes to shake off the Diablo conditioning, so it’s not until you hit act 2 and try again from scratch that you figure out a strategy for building a character. The passive skill tree has a handy search feature and after I typed “minion” into it I was determined to carve a path through the best parts. If you don’t plan your route, you miss out on your mana rocketing back to full, your health restoring, or in my case: zombie disco. It’s online only and if you insist on playing over the weekend it can be a very choppy experience. The chat is a sewage pipe, a stream of edgelord douchebaggery. Go into the options and turn it off. I’ve yet to meet anyone that wants to form a party and every time I look at it I’m certain I don’t want to. There’s little to say of the story, it’s not bad though. I appreciate that it doesn’t try to get in the way like Diablo 3′s did. Perhaps if they had taken their loot thesis a step further they could have buried it in the game’s items. Then all this hoarding would have expanded into something like an archaeology dig. A missed opportunity.

O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O out of Shiny Armour

Shadow of Mordor

It’s quite cool and exciting to begin with. We’re in Mordor with lots of grim orcs and cool cutscenes, and... is that a bush? Oh okay, it just popped into existence. Nevermind. Well at least sneaking around is fun... my finger hurts a lot though because they want me to hold down the trigger button for ages. Yeah, ganking orcs is cool, it’s real fun shooting them in the head... oh, I have to do these crappy sword fights where I only press two buttons throughout the whole thing.

This game is like someone who seems fascinating and pretty from afar, but soon as you talk to them at length you begin to realise that they’re quite boring. They just say the same thing over and over. It’s a sausage party that gets slowly more off putting as I play. The developers don’t even seem to know that women exist outside of being trophies or reasons to be angry about stuff. The main draw in this game is apparently the battles with the orc leaders, which I found to be the most boring part of the game. I hated the sword combat and it kept dragging me back to it. After doing every arrow and dagger challenge I could find on the map I left the game and never played it again.

Gollum out of Mordor

Dark Souls

in my game Ending I structured the second level so that the player would step forward and get a slap to the face in the shape of an unfair death. This was my opening salvo, death is your education. So after persisting with Dark Souls I’m somewhat nonplussed. I get it. By repeatedly killing the player they form a mental map of the area. By repeatedly killing the player they encourage experimentation.

Except that this doesn’t always work. There has to be some investment on the behalf of the player or this magic completely fails. If the player feels like they can walk away, they will. And they do. It’s why I believe Dark Souls is such a hit with game reviewers, they are beholden to persist, and in doing so the game makes a believer of them.

I on the other hand couldn’t care less. A tedious march through the same janky fights to get to the same boss I still don’t understand is nothing more than that. I tried a variety of combat techniques, from trying to interrupt attacks, to blocking, to evading, all of it very unsatisfying. What little progress I made illuminated the premise, to internalise the map and hone my skills, but I was not impressed. I enjoyed not one second of it, I only endured. I experimented and I explored, but never was I delighted.

The very worst thing that Dark Souls has given us is complacency towards killing the player. I have heard designers remark that it didn’t matter that the player died in that spot in their game because Dark Souls kills the player all the time. It makes me want to shake them. Dark Souls does not kill you all the time, it kills you for a specific reason. See, I get it, I get Dark Souls, I just don’t enjoy the combat.

Soul out of Estus

Divinity Original Sin 2

I had the worst time with Divinity Original Sin. My two characters insisted on bickering and ruining every conversation - no matter how many times I reloaded a scene they would find a way to trash it. I eventually found myself locked out of every quest in the game and unable to fight my way past monsters higher than my level. I was playing the game to forget about a failed relationship where my ex would find excuses to start arguments. It was about as bad an experience playing a game I could ever hope for.

To say the sequel is an improvement is true. To a point. Somehow I’ve done it again and gotten trapped in an area with no quests to advance and monsters too powerful to fight past. I’ve muddled my way past some really irritating quests with obtuse requirements that I’m told can be solved in many ways. Except that when you fail to chase a particular lead it’s really frustrating to have to try a dozen different tactics to shake out a solution. It feels like I’ve picked up my PC and I’m rattling it over my head until the game agrees to let me move on. People keep telling me I can solve situations in dozens of ways, but all of them seem very specific and very intent on being a dick about it.

The combat is as amazing as it is chaotic. Environmental effects are at the fore, making it feel very D&D-like as you slow people down with oil and then ignite the oil and so on. The story I felt was okay, but the tone is all over the place, making it impossible to give a shit. Some nice touches with elves gaining visions from eating flesh and anyone can choose perks for talking to animals - but I found it more infuriating than cute after searching an entire island to solve a riddle, only to have a rat explain to me that I had to talk to some NPC again in order to shake, shake, shake out the solution. For every ounce of fun I got two ounces of frustration and misery.

1 out of 2

Dungeon World

Out of all the table top roleplaying games I’ve tried, this one was the most robust for casual play. Especially seeing as roleplayers are the most unreliable people on the planet. The resolution system it employs forces a plot twist every time you use it, so it’s impossible to plan anything. It’s not for everyone, you end up with a very gonzo story without the fiddly depth that other roleplaying games manage. On the other hand it’s a dream to be the Games Master and watch a story unfold instead of meticulously planning it and seeing a conclusion land that tears apart your ideas instead of adding to them. I wrote a full guide of how I run this game over here. The campaign is effectively a sandbox, I let people explore and fill in the map as we go - which is why I mention it. I’d like a computer game that approached it this way, not like Dwarf Fortress where a randomly generated overworld is dumped on you. Instead I’d like a piecemeal discovery of the world, one that reacts to the tensions you’ve created. Perhaps I’ll have to do it myself.

Story out of Players

[tipsycad147]

How To Use Elemental Banishing With Fire & Ice

SL Bear

A few years ago, I belonged to a community online that was like a sanctuary for me. I’d known everyone for years and counted on this space to unwind from life’s more chaotic days. One day, a new person logged in and our dislike for each other was pretty instant. After several months of pettiness and stress, the situation escalated to the point where I thought I’d either have to leave my little online sanctuary, as unthinkable as that was at the time, or she would.

I decided she would.

The banishing spell I used worked within a week and it has continued to hold 2 years later. I was so shocked by its success that I wrote it down and it became the first spell I thought valuable enough to keep in a grimoire. I have needed it only once more since that first time and, just as before, it worked beautifully. Today, I will share this spell with you, as well as another I designed for banishing negative factors in your life — like bad habits, bad luck… bad hair (just kidding!).

Ice Them Out

Do not use this spell unless you want the particular person out of your life forever. There is no undo or rewind with this spell — it is 100% permanent. This is also crucial to understand for your casting. Your desire for the person you’re banishing to be gone forever must be strong. You have to have good reasons for wanting them gone and there can be no second-guessing, or the spell will not work. Basically, you have to really, really mean it.

You will need:

Time to focus and meditate

Two small mirrors, matching

A long piece of black string and a needle

A long piece of black cord or tape (Gorilla tape works nicely)

A piece of paper and black pen (black paper is even better)

A freezable container (with lid) that is big enough to hold the two mirrors

An incredibly strong desire to have a foe out of your life forever

Cut the piece of paper so it’s small enough to fit inside your mirrors and container, then write the name of the person you want to banish on it. Focus on this name, on this person — bring them into your mind and let them sit there right behind your eyes. Think hard about what they have done to cause you distress and to justify being removed from your life.

As you meditate on this person and the unhappiness they have caused you, thread your needle with the black string and poke it through their name, pulling it back through the paper, and then poking their name again from the back. Both ends of the string should now be hanging down the front of the paper, twice piercing the person’s name.

Remove the needle and tie the two hanging pieces of string together in a knot. The knot should be somewhat centred over the person’s name, though it’s important that the string is not taut (leave a little slack between the knot and the paper). As you continue ruminating on the trouble this person has caused, think of specific times where they hurt you in some way and tie a new knot for each incident you can remember. Think of how it made you feel and bind these memories and emotions in your knots, pulling them away from you and locking them instead with the person who caused them.

Once you have tied all your knots, place the paper away from you and take a moment to breathe. Let the bad vibes of that person go. This is much easier said than done so take your time and let your visualisation tools take over. Imagine your life now that the person is gone. Imagine the peace that you’ll experience and how your day to day will change for the better. While casting, especially when casting a somewhat negative spell, it’s essential to see the silver lining and keep this at the forefront. Your life will be a little more peaceful after this spell and now is the time to really see that and feel the relief.

Next comes the binding. It’s one thing to get someone to go away but it’s another to keep them away. With the name side out, roll the piece of paper into a tiny tube and wrap the excess black string around the tube as tightly as possible. Fill the freezable container with water and hold your piece of paper in it for a few seconds, until it’s thoroughly soaked through. Take your mirrors and slowly flatten your piece of paper and string between the mirrors, then wrap your black cord or tape around the mirrors to hold them tightly together. Place your mirrors into the water. Tightly seal your container and place it in the fridge, far in the back where it will never be disturbed.

Lastly, put that nuisance out of your mind and move on!

Cleansed By Fire

When wanting something to vanish without a trace, fire is a no-brainer. So for the banishing of negative things, like bad habits, for example, we’ll turn to the element of fire for a simple spell with a big impact.

You will need:

Time to focus and meditate

A small bowl or plate you don’t mind getting dirty

A white candle

A red candle

A black candle

A piece of paper and pen

A pair of tweezers

Make sure to work in a well-ventilated space as there will be plenty of smoke. Windows open, witches.

Begin by writing down the thing you’d like to banish on the piece of paper and curling the paper tightly into a tube shape. It should be roughly the size of a cigarette, if a little longer and thinner. With your tweezers, secure the paper and then light the end of the paper on fire, using the flame to light the black candle. Once the candle is lit, quickly stub the paper out onto the plate. Because you have wrapped the paper tightly, it should burn a little slower, but still be careful because the flame can get out of control fast and burn the whole paper away within seconds. It’s okay to have a few practice tries and a bowl of water handy!

Once you’ve got it and the black candle is lit, it’s focusing time. Slowly roll the paper between your hands (it should still be in the shape of a tube) and close your eyes. Say aloud, “I am so much happier in my life now that I’m _____” or however you’d like to phrase it, making sure to a) stay positive and keep ALL negative words out and b) keep it in the present tense. For example, if the bad habit you’re trying to quit is smoking, you’d phrase it like “I am so much happier in my life now that I can breathe.” Repeat your sentence quietly, and mentally focus on your life without the negative influence. Imagine it gone. Imagine all the good things about your life now that it’s gone.

When you feel you’ve meditated enough, hold your piece of paper with your tweezers again and light the end on fire using the black candle. Use this flame to light the red candle and then let your piece of paper burn down over your bowl or plate, letting the ashes fall there. Let every single corner of the paper turn to ash. Whatever you wanted to banish is gone.

Blow out the black and red candles and dispose of your ashes as quickly as possible — down the drain is fastest!

Now light your white candle.

You can let this burn for as long as you like. White symbolises new beginnings and purification and will promote your new life, free of the negative thing you’ve banished. So let it burn! I like to play uplifting music during this time and do things that make me feel happy and peaceful, like painting or reading or eating something. This should be a time of relaxation and calm — enjoy it!

Notes:

Banishing spells against others come with a small risk because you are imposing your will on another. While I’ve never had an issue with this spell, it doesn’t mean there won’t be. Simple protection charms can be used and should be effective enough. Again, the risk is small but be aware.

If you’re having trouble finding mirrors that fit, look no further than your big box craft store. I know I’m always saying to shop at these places, but it’s only because I basically live there and they have everything.

Remember gratitude. When you’re asking for help in this way, it’s important to feel thankful at the end of your casting and even say aloud the things you are thankful for in your life. Even when not casting, remind yourself to take a moment and count your blessings — not only does it help your spells, it helps your mental state all day long.

Good luck, witches!

https://thetravelingwitch.com/blog/2018/5/29/how-to-use-elemental-banishing-with-fire-ice

[kokania00]

Computer Performance - 7 Ways to Speed Up Windows Computers

Are you sick and tired of it taking forever to open a website, file or program? Did your computer seem to run a lot faster when you first got it? If your answers to these 2 questions were yes, then please read on. In this article I am going to give you tips to speed up your computer. They can all be done today, even if you are new to computers. The 7 steps that I am going to share with you are so easy, believe me you can do it! These are techniques that computer technicians in several different support organizations do and some charge a lot of money for their walking you through these processes. You are going to get them today at no charge. Are you ready? Then let's begin!

Step 1: Scandisk

You should run scandisk at least once a month. This will make sure that your computer can read all of the information on your disk. How will this speed up my computer? I'm glad you asked! You see your computer has in it's hard drive what the technicians call redundancy. What I mean is if your computer is trying to read a file and the data isn't read correctly from the disk, the computer tries to read that information again and again a set number of times. This results in slower loading times. When scandisk is ran regularly this keeps your disk free of these storage errors and thus enables the computer to get the information it needs from the disk as fast as possible. Scandisk should be run before the next step each and every time.

I know you're asking, how do I run scandisk. It's simple. Find that icon on your desktop or in your start menu labeled 'My Computer'. In there you will see a listing of all the drives in your computer. Right click on the drive you want to scan and go to properties. There, you will have a tools tab. Click on it. You will see a button that says check for errors. This is scandisk or also called checkdisk on different versions of windows. There are 2 different modes, Standard or Thorough. Standard checks and makes sure that all the bits and pieces of your files are in the spot on the disk where it thinks they should be. In other words, it checks for filing errors. Thorough does a standard check as well as it tests each spot on the disk where the drive can write something and makes sure that what it writes, it reads back the same thing. If it doesn't read the same information back, it marks that spot as bad so that it is not used. This keeps down that redundancy thing we spoke of earlier. Wasn't that easy? Now, on to Step 2.

Step 2: Defrag

Defrag should be run once a week if you use your computer more than 14 hours a week. This equates to about 2 hours a day. Most people who actively use their computer will fall into this category. Defrag, whose real name is disk defragmenter, is your best friend for speed. You see when your computer writes something to the disk; it starts the disk to turning and drops bits of the data you want to write wherever there is a hole. It then tells the filing system where it placed that piece. So your file could be literally broken into 20 pieces! Your disk takes longer to load the file because it has to jump around to different spots to gather the pieces together when it needs it. Defrag takes care of this by gathering the pieces all together and writing them back to the disk in one piece. This way when you need the information, it's all right there. To run defrag it's the same as where we went for scandisk. You go to 'My Computer' and you right click on the drive you want to run defrag on and go to properties. There go to the tools tab. Click the Defragment button. Wow this is getting easier by the minute! On to step 3.

Step 3: Background Programs

Background programs really slow down your computer's performance. They accomplish this by using up your computer's resources. Resources are the combined power of your processor (brain), memory, and disk space. These 3 are the equivalent to horsepower. This is where you will gain a lot of your speed back as well. If you look at an area of your screen right now, I can show you a fraction of some of these that you never thought of. The area I want you to look at is called your system tray. It is located next to your clock, which is opposite your start menu. If your start menu is on the left side, then the clock is on the right. Next to the clock you will see these little icons or pictures. These are programs that run on your computer whenever it boots. Guess what, these are background programs. They are there to help load things you need faster. If you are following this guide you really don't need most of them. Do you?

Here's how you get rid of them and most of the others that you can't even see as well. Sorry folks who are on Windows 2000, this step won't work for you. If you read to the end I will give you a bonus that will make up for it, I promise. Ok, for the rest of you, click on start. Click on run. Type msconfig. Click ok. You should get a system configuration utility. Be very careful here and follow my instructions exactly. Click on the startup tab at the top. You will have a list of all the programs that run when your computer boots or starts. If you look down the list there will be some names that are familiar to you. When you see those names I want you to think: "Do I really need this program running all the time?" If the answer is no, uncheck the box. For example, some of you may have heard of RealPlayer. There's a smart start icon associated with it. You really don't need real player running when you are only going to be playing FreeCell now do you? :) On to step 4.

Step 4: Temporary Files

Temporary files hold up space on your disk. These files are most of the time useless. Temporary files are just that; files that were temporarily created by a program or installer. They are supposed to be deleted when not needed any longer, but a lot of programs do a poor job of cleaning them up. Helping them out will get you more speed for your horsepower. For example: let's take temporary internet files. When you go to a website every element of that website's decorations are stored in a temp file on your computer. Your computer does this to help supposedly. It's supposed to help by when you visit the same site again; the elements of the website will already be on your computer and therefore don't have to be downloaded again. This in theory should speed up your surfing right? Wrong! Here's what really goes down. For every element of the website, your computer reads every temp file to see if it matches. Every single file in your temporary internet files folder! To get a grasp of this here's what I want you to do. Open internet explorer. Go to the tools menu and click on internet options. Click the settings button. Then click the view files button. Do you see what I mean? Every file! Now...Close the temporary internet files window. Click OK on the settings window. Do you see that button next to settings on the internet options window? It's labeled delete files. Click it. Check delete all offline content. Click ok. When the hourglass is gone, you are all clean! This should be done once a month. This will keep your whole computer running smoothly. The secret lies in Internet Explorer. It's integrated so much into windows, when it has a problem, windows has a problem. What I am saying is when you opened my computer in steps 1 and 2. You were using internet explorer. Ok. Nuff said. On to step 5!

Step 5: Antivirus

Good Antivirus software is an absolute must! There are several choices to choose from. Some cost money and some don't. Viruses hide on your computer and wreak havoc. If you don't have antivirus software on your computer, you will never know they are there. They sit and hide out until their appointed time and then interfere with your computer. Viruses are programs written by people with too much time on their hands and not enough morals. They sit and think of ways to make your day bad. Some viruses will sit on your computer and do nothing but open up connections to other servers all over the internet. What does that do? It slows your computer down drastically! Nuff said. Your choices are to get paid antivirus software like Norton, Mcafee, or Computer Associates. If you don't have the cash to spare then you can go to your favorite search engine like Yahoo or Google and enter in 'free antivirus download' and get a list of all kinds of scanners. Some is far better than none. Some of the best free software that I have found are AVG, Avast!, and ClamWin. If you have a fear of installing software, never fear. There are also free online virus scanners. Again, you go to your favorite search engine and type in 'free online virus scan' and you will get plenty of results. Beware though, with these scanners you run the risk of getting infected still. The reason is you have to go to the site and scan the computer yourself, preferably once a week. In that time a virus could have already infected your machine. Antivirus software that you install on the computer checks every file, every time it's used thus drastically decreasing the chances of infection. It's like a flu shot. Some of the good online virus scanners are Norton, Panda, and BitDefender. Now, on to step 6.

Step 6: Recycle Bin

It is very important to keep your recycle bin empty. What I mean is this, you don't want to have hundreds of files sitting in your recycle bin that you deleted 6 months ago. They are taking up valuable space. Windows uses your drive as memory to run programs. When you run out of physical memory, it uses what's called a page or swap file and stores it there. These recycle bin files are taking up space that windows could be using for memory. Every bit of memory you can get adds to your horsepower. So for God's sake, please keep your recycle bin tidy. Get rid of things that you are sure you won't need again. When you go to delete something, and you are absolutely sure you won't need it again, you can hold down the shift key and press the delete key to permanently delete it without sending it to the recycle bin. And now, last but not least, step 7.

Step 7: Adware and Spyware

I like to call these small time viruses. The industry calls them parasites. Norton calls them extended threats. Do you get my drift? What is adware and spyware you may ask? They are actually quite similar. I'll start first by explaining the ways that you can get them on your computer. Let's say you download a 'free' program to run on your computer that you think is pretty neat. If you are like most of us, you don't take the time to read the license agreement. If you did, you would find a line similar to: by installing this product you agree to install xyz product which will be used to send marketing information to the makers of the software. Do you see how they get you? One of the other ways you can get it is by going to some random website. It doesn't matter what it is, but they have this script that runs as the page is loading and it installs the adware and/or spyware on your computer. The last way that I will discuss here is through a virus. There are viruses out there whose sole job is to download adware, spyware, keyloggers, and other malicious software on to your computer. These things really slow your computer down. Here's how they work.

Adware and spyware install on your computer and watch what you do, where you surf, you know what you are interested in. They then open a connection to a server and report your activities. They are very good at what they do! Where adware and spyware differ is spyware does nothing but report your activities. Adware on the other hand reports your activities and the server it reports to in turn sends it an ad to display on your computer. Now, just like there are antivirus programs out there, there are now very good antispyware and antiadware programs on the market. Noadware, Spybot, and Adaware are a few of the good ones.

In conclusion there are 7 major ways to speed up your computer with simple maintenance and preventative measures. Run scandisk, defrag, get rid of excess background programs, delete temporary files, get some antivirus software, and also get a good adware and spyware remover utility. I hope you have found this information useful. I hope that I have helped someone here with this information and I pray that you will check out some other very useful information at

I love you all. God bless you!

P. S. For you Windows 2000 users, I made a promise to you back in step 3. Here's where I deliver! If you can get access to a Windows 98, ME, or XP machine. You can copy msconfig.exe to a disk and use it on your computer to get rid of background programs using the directions in step 3. Just search the c: drive for msconfig.exe and copy it to floppy. Bring it to your computer and run it. God Bless!

[defender-of-mankind]

Assignment 1: Rube Goldberg Machine

Friday, May 31st

1:30pm

Alrighty so we just sat down and opened Unity and I’m just gonna jump into this project. My plan is to get familiar with the software a little bit since I don’t know Unity…like, at all. There’s gonna be a lot of failures and frustration but we’re gonna make it work.

Once I have the most basic handle on how to make things fall and roll, then I’ll start throwing together a design and then put it all together in the program.

I’m coming into this assignment with no knowledge of the software, the coding language, the physics, or the controls, so let’s get going.

2:30pm

So, one hour later and things are moving! One thing, actually. I made a ball roll.

Needless to say, I’ve been struggling. Full on the struggle bus with this one.

The biggest problem I kept running into is that I don’t know Unity, so the first hour of this project was just me constantly trying to run the game to see if something would change and it would magically work because I didn’t even know where to start.

Google has been my best friend and I have, like, 25 tabs open right now.

I feel like an explanation of what I had to go through during this part wouldn’t do the process justice, so, here’s a list of some of the things I Googled while trying to figure out how to make this machine:

how to add objects in unity

unity ball asset download

unity ball asset download free

how to make a ball roll down a hill in unity

ball not falling in unity

why won’t objects move in unity

what is a rigid body in unity

how to add a rigid body to a ball in unity

ball going through objects in unity

how to add colliders in unity

why aren’t colliders working in unity

After frustration and countless test runs, I finally figured it out. Not only do you need a rigid body on the object that is falling, but both objects also need to have colliders and all colliders and rigid bodies need to be of the same dimension, meaning you can’t have a 2D rigid body and a 3D collider on the same object.

Also, I made my design. It’s got a lot going on and I’m thinking I might have to download some 3D files online for the parts that aren’t basic shapes like spheres and cubes. I’m really excited about the funnel part of it. I wanted it to be like one of those funnels that you see in museums for donations where you can slide a coin down it and it circles its way down to the bottom, and hopefully the ball will be able to do the same thing. I also have a catapult in there, not sure if that’s gonna work because I’m definitely gonna need to find a 3D model (or make it) but it needs to have a spring-loaded action in order to make the ball catapult since I can’t click it to activate it or anything. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find one that works, who knows.

I’m moving on now to the rest of the build, hopefully, we won’t have any more issues….

6:00pm

Well…we ran into more issues.

My original design was made with no knowledge of the capabilities that Unity has involving collisions and rigid bodies, so after my brief, self-taught crash course on the basics, I felt that I had a good handle on how and why we need collisions and thought the rest of the process would go fairly smooth.

Boy was I wrong.

I thought the funnel was going to be easy enough, just add another collision and it would just work, but I didn’t realize that since it’s such an irregular shape, you need specific kind of collisions otherwise the ball just goes right through. The problem is, that kind of collision is considered a 3D collision, not a 2D collision.

Since I had used 2D collisions for all of my blocks and the balls, I wasn’t able to make the irregularly shaped funnel collide with the ball, since you can’t mix 2D and 3D collisions and I needed to add a mesh collision to the funnel because it’s a complex and irregular shape, which is a 3D collision. So, in my efforts to make this work, I changed all of my collisions to 3D collisions. 

The issue with this was that I had adjusted the gravity for one of the blocks that fell and slingshotted another ball into the funnel thing, but with 3D collisions and 3D rigid bodies, you can’t adjust the gravity in the same way as you can the 2D ones without scripts which I don’t know how to use. 

So I ended up changing all the collisions back to 2D collisions because I read somewhere that there is a 2D collision option for irregular shapes, the polygon collision tool, so I thought that would make it work the way I wanted it to with the gravity change and everything, but it didn't go too well...

I think this tool could definitely be really helpful in situations like this or when you just need a collision on part of an object and you want it to be more accurate than just the box colliders, but I was just having so much trouble grasping how to make it do what I wanted it to, so I tried to rework my whole design in order to have the slower falling block (since I can’t change gravity, bummer) bump a ramp that would send the ball rolling into the funnel, but the ball ended up rolling too slowly and just went straight down the funnel instead of swirling the way I wanted it to, so after all the work of changing the collisions and rigid bodies, I was still stuck.

I think I might have to ditch the funnel idea, which is unfortunate because it would’ve been so cool if it actually worked the way I wanted it to but without the scripts to help it move the way I want it to, I don’t think it’s gonna look good. I also realized that the 3D collisions are more limiting than the 2D collisions, so I want to keep using the 2D collisions in hopes that some of the later stuff in my design will work the way I want it to.

I might change the funnel into something like a basketball hoop just to make the transition to the next part more interesting and try to keep the same idea that I was going for, but I’ll probably have to rework everything again because I know the catapult is not going to work the way I want it to, mostly because I can’t find an asset anywhere that has something like a spring-loaded catapult that doesn’t require scripts, so I’ll save that for another day.

Saturday, June 1st

10:00am

Alrighty, we’re back at it after last night. I got distracted with dinner and decided it was better to sleep on it than getting more frustrated trying to figure out my design. I did more research about collisions and trying to get a mesh collision to work with 2D collisions, but it seems like that’s just not something the software can do. I am still kind of sad that I couldn’t find a way to make the funnel work the way I wanted it to, and the catapult is definitely not going to work either because of the intricacies of the program that I didn’t know when I first designed it. Basically, I wanted the machine to catapult one of the balls through some hoops that would set off the next chain reaction, but that’s been taken out now.

Hopefully, this will end up working better. I’m still trying to keep the same kind of elements in order to get to the end goal and not make it super boring, but for now, I’m going to finish what I can and we’ll check in when I get stuck again (because we all know I’m definitely gonna get stuck again at some point.)

12:00pm

I lied! No more stucks!

I finished the final design that I had with minimal changes and it actually works!! I’m still kind of upset that I had to change some parts of it like the funnel, and the basketball hoop idea turned into a tube but that didn’t work either because I ran into the same issue with needing collisions but the ball wouldn’t interact with the tube the way I wanted to unless I used 3D collisions, so I changed it to this ramp down/step idea thing. And then the other part that didn’t work was the catapult and since my design needed a way for the reaction to get higher than it already was, I placed some dominos up a staircase and that finished the machine!

To be completely honest, I wish that there was more to it, so I’ll probably end up adding more, but I saved the file as is so I have that as a back up if something goes wrong. I really like the way I did then end because in a lot of Rube Goldberg Machines, it kind of just “ends” but I had it end by giving the last block a purpose: to finish the tower. I’m really happy with the way this turned out and I learned so much in the process about basic physics in the game and what needs to be applied in order to make that happen.

One part that I’m particularly proud of is the tiltey ramp thing close to the end where the block falls and makes the ball roll down from the other side. I first tried making that just with normal cubes in Unity, but quickly discovered that with the rigid bodies and collisions that I needed that the whole thing fell apart as soon as I ran the simulation, so I decided to design it myself. I used Shapr3D which is an iPad app that is just the best 3D modeling software I have ever used. It’s way more hands-on than just a mouse and keyboard because I actually get to track around the object and design it with my pencil and hands. In my opinion, it makes designing so much easier. So I’m really happy with the way that one turned out.

I’ll probably end up fixing the middle section where the ball falls down the little ramps because I think it looks kind of messy and it could be a much more interesting section, since it was originally supposed to be the funnel/basketball hoop idea, but overall I’m super proud of myself with how far I’ve come using this software in just under a day, and I can’t wait to see what I’ll be capable of by the end of the course.

Monday, June 3rd

1:45pm

RED FREAKING ALERT!!! I SCREWED EVERYTHING UP!

I was talking to one of my friends who knows Unity well and asking how to export the package and when it all came up I realized there were a lot of assets that were in the package that I didn’t use, so in my effort to clean everything up a little bit, I started deleting asset packages that I didn’t use.

OR SO I THOUGHT!

I accidentally deleted all of the platforms and ramps from the WHOLE THING because I didn’t realize that the asset was in one of the packages that I deleted. I tried to troubleshoot and get the package back, but I totally ignored the warning that once you delete a package it can’t be undone.

So long story short, I had to remake the ENTIRE PROJECT from scratch. rip.

It went pretty quickly and only took me about 2 hours to redo the whole thing and it actually gave me time to rethink some of the designs and potentially add some more components. I ended up keeping most of what I already had but I changed the end a little bit to make it a tad more exciting. I also increased the gravity on all moving objects to make them fall a little quicker because my parents said it was a little slow to watch. I also added one massive feature to the end that I quite enjoy. It serves little purpose other than to give me a chuckle, but still. (I had to put the video in a separate post)

So, now I think I’m actually done and I learned my lesson to only upload the asset packages I need to the project and to NOT DELETE ANY OF THEM EVER.

This process took me over 8 hours of working time to fully complete, but I learned a lot and made a lot of mistakes that I know not to make next time. While I was so frustrated that I completely deleted most of my project, it actually showed me how much I’ve improved just in the few days I’ve been working on this project and how I can be much more efficient and work faster now that I (kind of) know what I’m doing.

Below is the Google Drive link to the Unity Package:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GuA92kmZMyIdXKUJx5-FQTk_MYUpXr3E/view?usp=sharing

[dorothydelgadillo]

5 Ways Marketers Can Improve Page Load Time on Their Website

You’ve probably received notifications from Google that your site is now subject to mobile-first indexing. But what does that SEO jargon mean for you as a marketer?

We’ll start with a brief history -- but feel free to jump ahead if you already know this.

Google’s goal is to provide the most relevant answers and resources to search queries with minimal browsing required on your part. They want the answer to your search to be the top search result --featured snippets anyone? -- and they will keep tweaking their algorithm to get there.

(You can check out some of Google's latest updates and changes here.)

Originally, Google crawled websites in a desktop format, and ranked them based on certain criteria. This made sense, because most people browsed the internet from their desk, on a full-sized computer or laptop.

Now, more searches are being conducted on mobile devices, so ranking based on the desktop version of a site doesn’t provide the most relevant or helpful results.

Enter stage left, the aforementioned mobile-first indexing -- and page load time.

How Page Load Time Factors into Mobile-First Indexing

Page load time is one of the primary metrics Google uses when ranking a site. And while the desktop version of your site may have loaded fine on a desktop device with a standard internet connection, mobile devices are a different ballgame.

Though often sleek and in high-demand, mobile devices are still much less powerful, and operate on a slower network with a smaller viewing resolution and shorter online sessions.

In short, the people you’re trying to reach are accessing your website with more simplistic, less robust hardware and networks than we’re used to. That’s what we need to be optimizing for now -- and given how finicky mobile networks can be, fast-loading pages are key.

Stop. This may be the moment where you feel tempted to run to your developer team, but you shouldn’t do that just yet.

You may think this falls to your developer(s) to handle entirely on their own, but there’s a lot you can do as a marketer.

To help you, I’m going to walk you through:

Benchmarking and some basic terminology you need to know;

Where to find your page load time (and know if your site is mobile-indexed yet);

Tips and things to keep in mind when creating content and pages;

Shifting your mindset from desktop to mobile; and

Some technical details for crawling (and recrawling) your site.

First, What Is a “Fast” Page Load Time?

The short answer: less than three seconds -- Google data, straight from the horse’s mouth.

Unfortunately, the average mobile landing page loads in 22 seconds. Ouch.

Bringing your page load time down isn’t just a vanity metric. Every second counts, because the  longer the page takes to load, the higher your bounce rate will be, and the worse your ranking gets.

Load times above three seconds increase the probability of bounce by over 30%. That goes to over 100% when you hit six seconds.

So, while there’s not much room for error, there’s a lot of room for improvement. And that’s a good thing,

Okay, So What Can Marketers Do About Load Time?

Before we get to that, there are a few terms, concepts, and facts you need to know first:

HTML Document

Every web page is essentially a text document that the web browser reads and converts into a more pleasant format -- usually. The three main tags in an HTML document are:

<html> tag, which everything else falls into;

<head> tag, more informational for the browser, but has some displayable information like the page title; and

<body> tag, everything you normally see and interact with.

Title & Metadata

Inside the <head> at the top of every HTML document, there should be a few special tags that tell the browser and web crawlers some information about the page. If you don’t have these you should add them, but that’s another topic.

Markup Structure

Your page should have one <h1> tag as the main heading, usually related to the title or topic of the page. Then successive heading tags (<h2> through <h6>) should be used to break up the page, with lower numbers being more important. Heading tags should not be used for emphasis, as that can be confusing to both web crawlers and people.

Time-to-First-Byte (TTFB)

This is how long it takes for a persona’s browser (think your user’s phone) to receive the first amount of information from the server. This tends to be a more technical aspect, but is important to understand so you know if you need to discuss with your developer or look into new hosting/servers.

Robots.txt

This file tells the robots and crawlers that get to a site what information is okay or not to read and follow through. You may have a landing page that should only show up as an ad click and not in search results. Or you may not want a crawler to follow any/all of the links on a page.

Sitemap

This file tells a web crawler all of the pages on your site. If certain pages aren’t linked from anywhere within your site, a crawler is going to have no way to find them. It’s good practice to submit your sitemap to Google via the Search Console (but more on that in a bit).

How to Get Started Improving Page Load Time

Now that you are ready to bang your head against a wall, let’s get to the good stuff!

Know your page load time

There are a number of tools that can tell you the load time and other details of each page, and I recommend using at least two so you can have a more complete picture. Here are a few of my favorites, all of which are free:

Google’s PageSpeed Insights

Tried and true, this is the best place to start. Test out a link and get recommendations for improvement on both mobile and desktop. Google also links to resources if you aren’t sure how to improve, although they tend to be a bit technical.

Google’s Test My Site (mobile focused)

This is a similar tool to PageSpeed, but is focused on mobile. It also doesn’t have the same amount of detail as the others, so it’s better to pair this with another tool. But this is the easiest to comprehend.

WebPageTest.org

Fantastic for getting detailed information about your page, load time, resources, how long it takes to get information from the server, just about everything you want to know. And you can select what type of device and connection to base this on, so you can aim specifically for mobile devices on slower connections. It can be a little hard on the eyes, but you have to look past that.

GTmetrix

This is a cross between PageSpeed Insights and WebPageTest. Gives you a lot of information, and links to resources if you want to dig deeper. This is becoming my page speed tool of choice.

It’s okay if you aren’t able to make all of the updates yourself.

You’ll be able to make some of the updates, and for the others you’ll be more knowledgeable the next time you talk to your developers.

Know If Your Site Is Mobile-Indexed

You will need access to your site’s Google Search Console to find this. There is a lot more information you can get out of Search Console, but for now you’re looking in Messages for something like this:

  If your Console looks different, you may need to check the old version of the Search Console - the new version is currently in a beta and while it looks nice, it doesn’t have 100% of the functionality yet. Look in the bottom left of the sidebar.

Improving Page Load Time in a Mobile-First World

I think it’s safe to say we’ve established that mobile is the present -- Yes, Morgan, I knew that coming into this article..” -- and that we need to be thinking “mobile-first” instead of “mobile also.”

So how do you do that as a marketer?

1. Reduce the Amount of Requested Content on the Page

Remember when we talked about the HTML document? The document itself is just text and has no images, video, or audio on it, only a link to each of those media elements. Every time the browser reads one of those links, it has to request the actual media from somewhere else. The more requests your page makes, the more time it will take to load the page.

There are ways developers can help improve this, but as a whole you want to have less content requested per page. Google recommends fewer than 50 requests per page as best practice.

“Pfft. That’s easy.”

Nope, that 50 includes every request on your page. Stylesheet? Minimum one request (often more). Javascript? Way more than one. That fancy thing you wanted your images to do while you scroll? Another javascript file. Google Analytics or Tag Manager? HubSpot tracking code? Facebook pixel? Chances are, most of those are going to also have requests.

So, you have a couple ways to improve load time.

Use only the images and videos the page needs. Every time you’re thinking about adding media, think if it’s really valuable for the page.

Yes, it looks great on desktop, but does the image evoke the right emotion from a user? Does it explain something better than a sentence or two? If it doesn’t do that on mobile, you’re wasting space and page load time.

That’s why so many sites are using gradient colors, white space, and browser-based animations. It still looks great, but requires much less from a technical load perspective.

2. Reduce the Size of the Content Included on the Page

OK, you’ve reduced the requested content down to what is most valuable for the page. Now, we need to reduce the overall size of the page (ie. the content on the page). Google best practice recommends pages be less than 500KB.

That’s a bit harder. Especially since the last picture you took on your phone may be bigger than that.

Sometimes your website host or service provider has some backend technology that can help with this, but the more you can do up front the better of a job it will do for you.

First, make sure images are set to an appropriate resolution. With 4K images and high quality photos being the big thing these days, we often forget that the screen showing those pixels is often significantly smaller.

Talk to your developers about how to have different images sizes display for different screen sizes. Yes, 1920 pixels wide looks great on a desktop, but it’s overkill for a phone that only has a screen width of 415 pixels.

“But Morgan, I don’t have Photoshop to get different image resolutions.”

No need! There are a lot of free tools online, but you can even use a basic preview application on your Mac or Windows computer. If you aren’t sure how, a quick google search for “[os name] change image size” can help.

Once the image is scaled to a smaller resolution, you will want to compress it. Compression removes a bit of quality (usually up to your discretion), and results in a smaller file size.

A good rule of thumb is maintaining 80% quality. That is usually imperceptible to the human eye (or pretty close anyway) and results in a good enough file size improvement. This can be fine-tuned, but start there.

Again, there are a lot of free tools online to do this. You can also purchase a relatively inexpensive tool for a bit more control (I use Squash on my Mac.)

Wait, What About Video?

Good question. If you can get away with it, converting a shorter video into a gif results in a large file size savings. It can be just enough movement or explanation to be engaging and get the point across.

Obviously that doesn’t work for every case, but do that wherever you can.

For videos that can’t be converted into a gif, use a video hosting service. This could be something as powerful as Vidyard, or even just YouTube. While these require a request (counting against your request total), it doesn’t download the full video file until a visitor watches it, so you are saving valuable file size in the initial page load.

There is a middle ground, where you can convert a video into a gif (or a select portion of the video into a gif), and use that as the placeholder that links to the full video. Again, you’ll want to make sure you aren’t adding too much to your page load.

3. Minimize the Number of “Extras” on the Page

While this sounds like a developer consideration, it is important to understand and to be able to make changes and suggestions whenever possible. And yes, this technically falls under reducing requests, but you may not always be able to make changes here.

Think about all the extras that are added onto your site. We discussed a few earlier, like Google Analytics, HubSpot tracking, and the Facebook pixel. Some are necessities that a marketer can’t go without, and you shouldn’t remove those.

But are there any places where you drop an embed code? Maybe it’s for a Call-to-Action or chat services? If you’re on Wordpress, these may come in the form of plugins. Regularly go through your plugins and make sure you aren’t using more than you need.

You want to focus particularly on the extras that are visible, because the browser needs to render that to complete loading the page.

4.Revise Your Mobile Layout As Needed

How often do you check the mobile version of a page before publishing it? Do images, videos, and text end up displaying how you would expect? What does the first screen look like when the page loads?

If you have the option, hide some of the superfluous content on mobile. If that’s not an option you have now, talk to your developer to see if that is possible.

By nature, the mobile and desktop versions of your page should look different. And that’s okay. Pinch to zoom is a thing of the past for the default loading of a page.

Try to keep the initial screen simple and direct. If there is too much going on (meaning it probably requires a longer time to load), try to rework that into something simpler. Background, some text, and an action. It can get more complicated, but air on the side of simplicity for the sake of mobile unless you have a specific reason otherwise.

5. Test & Ask Google to Recrawl Your Site When You Make Changes

Once you’ve made some changes, test your page again using the tools above.

When you’re ready, you can ask Google to recrawl your site to capture any updates. Google will do this automatically after some period of time -- as long as the crawler can find the page, so you may need a new sitemap! Again, something to consult your developers about.

Go back to Google Search Console and go to the URL Inspection Tool. Enter the URL of the page you want reindexed, and you’re done! It will take. Here's a deeper dive to get indexed as smoothly as possible.

If you have more than a handful of pages, upload a sitemap instead.

See, Mobile-First Isn’t So Scary After All

By now you should have a better understanding of what elements make up page load time and how you can improve it. Obviously a lot falls on the tools you use and your development team, however, you can share with them some more technical changes to improve load time.

Even if you can’t make changes to every page, you should have a better idea of what questions to ask to make sure your content is optimized and your developers are thinking about what matters most for your mobile audience.

How much can you improve your page load time?

Run a few pages through the testing tools above, pick one that has some room for improvement, and try to make some changes. Every second of improved load time means a better chance of ranking higher.

More importantly, it means someone is more likely to stay on your page and consume your content. Mission accomplished.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/5-ways-marketers-can-improve-page-load-time-on-your-website