#STAR controller

[safiery]

Safiery Selected by Victron Energy for Digital Switch Control from Victron Touch Screen

Victron is the market leader globally in electrical power conversion headquartered in Netherlands.

 Victron have pioneered a graphic user interface that allows open collaboration as well as cloud based remote management and support.

This ability to assist customers and even see the last 6 months of history changes the way support is done for adventure travellers whether on land or sea.

Its a honour for Safiery to be invited to collaborate our STAR range of digital switching so that for the first time, the Victron touch display can switch devices and dim lights.

Safiery’s STAR controller range includes IP67 controllers up to 150A 12 channel with 6 x 30A circuits and on device manual backup.

Safiery’s controllers are all advanced fuseless and open circuit in the event of a short circuit in less than 80 millionths of a second.

In parallel to the Victron screen are 8 and 12 button CAN connected keypads IP65 with interchangeable icons.

There are 4 bluetooth wireless 4 button switches also to choose from and any one output can be addressed by up to 6 switches.

The user can configure a Master or Submaster switch on the Victron display and all the programming is done with a smartphone. No laptop necessary.

The STAR controller connects to Victron’s Cerbo or Ekrano using encyrpted WiFi. No additional cabling is required. Together with the wireless switch we estimate typical installation times are halved for installers.This new technology simplifies communication with no hub or “middleware” between the STAR controllers and the Victron system. This dramatically reduces system cost and configuration time.There are 10 products in Safiery’s STAR range. All designed and built in Queensland… even better on the Gold Coast. The STAR range was a finalist at Metstrade’s prestigious DAME (Design and Manufacturing Excellence) Award in Amsterday last November. 

Synchronous Customer Experience with AI – Victron Meets MATTER.

 Firstly, what is MATTER?Matter is an open-source, royalty-free connectivity standard developed to unify smart devices . It ensures they can communicate and interact seamlessly regardless of the manufacturer. Devices are tested by an independent testing laboratory who only give approval with strict compliance. Matter is backed by Apple, Google, Amazon and Samsung who require blockchain encryption on each and every controller. The ultimate in privacy and security.

Using MATTER devices lowers installed cost because of extensive use of wireless. For example a sound system on a boat can be a matter compliant system that synchronises with multimedia screens and controlled from any smart display. When a light is turned off using STAR controller in main cabin and its late at night, the sound system is turned off everywhere, the night light in the ensuite is turn on and dimmed to a low level, plus inverters can be turned off, plus… This automation is done on the users smartphone. Google even has AI for it now!

AC outlets and devices can be turned on/off within the same display – wirelessly.

Bosch are incorporating MATTER in every appliance. So they can simply be turned off remotely from your smartphone when not using the boat.

You see the status of all devices on your smartphone at home.

In late 2025 camera imaging will be included in MATTER with blockchain encryption. You can see the maintenance technician entering your boat from home, but the same camera won’t share images outside of your secure network.

It’s Energy Management where there are big benefits.

Demand control of “non essential” loads can be made based on battery SOC or even better, based on solar forecast and battery SoC. For electric propulsion, estimating the battery energy to retain for overnight living can be automatically calculated.

That’s the power of AI in smartphones, they do the heavy lifting. There is no laptop to program… or need of a technician to re-program. Another significant cost saving.

Controlling lights, dimming them and even changing colour is all done on smart display or smart phone in the same native app as the multi-media and energy devices.

One homogenous app. It will no longer be “Hey Google or Hey Siri”. Smart displays will recognise you and say “Hey Marilyn, energy and water levels are good but the temperature is dropping tonight so the heater and hot water will be turned on earlier if you agree. Do you?”

There are around 2,000 compliant devices and all can be integrated with automation from Safiery’s STAR conrollers which can be activated by a wireless switch.

However, Safiery’s STAR system can be deployed and operated without MATTER which is only added if the user wishes it. How Good’s That! 

[qiinamii]

one braincell transfer (divided by four)

[dovahkiin-official]

some fic writers don't understand what Sulu and Chekov do, so let me make an analogy: Sulu drives the car and Chekov has the GPS.

[aysrin]

Needle Felt Siffrin Build Log: (oct 6 - nov 20, 2024)

Credits goes wholely to @insertdisc5 for creating ISAT and siffrin's design! I am just here to attempt to make cool fanart (and get more people to play isat.. my devious plans are going great so far :3) As always, this isn't a tutorial- it is just a log about how i go about approaching a sculpture and I hope this collection of resources can help others make their own sifs!!

PSA: this has some spoilers for endgame CGs/sprites on my references image board ( also might see it in the backgrounds of my process pics). And bc this is needle felting, you will see some sharp needles! beware!

my inspiration was the intro cutscene where Sif eats the star, so my main goal was to adhere to the style of ISAT as closely as possible while transfering it to 3D space. And I knew i also wanted to try making the cloak for stopmotion purposes, so my process was tailored towards having control over the fabric with wire inlaid within the cloak (more on that later).

I ended up not sticking eyebrows on top of siffrin's bangs lol but anyways, first order of business is Gather Reference! v important. pureref is free and an awesome program. I also do some sketches to visualize the pose and important details i wanted to include in the sculpt.

behold the isat wiki gallery page! tawnysoup wrote an awesome ISAT style guide that absolutely rings true in 3d space too!! adrienne made a sif hair guide here!! (sorry i couldnt find the original link, but it's on the wiki). It says ref komaeda hair so that's what i looked at, along with other adjacent hairstyles! I also like doing drawovers on in progress photos to previs shapes n stuff to get a better idea of the end result.

Also if you're like me and struggle with translating stuff into 3D space, take a look at how people make 3d models and figurines! sketchfab is also a great resource! I looked at the link botw model by Christoph Schoch here for hair ref. (I used Maya, but there's a blender version too ! you can pose characters too if your model has been rigged!)

Face:

Started off blocking out the main shapes of eyelids and iris, and then filling in the colour details in the iris and the star highlights before moving onto adding thin black outlines and eyelashes. I didn't take many in-progress photos cause i kept ripping stuff out to redo them many many times, sorry!! This eye took about 3 hrs bc i just wasn't happy with it!! Sometimes it do be the vibe to give up, go to bed and see how it looks in the morning (more often than naught, it looks fine and it was the "dont trust yourself after 9pm" speaking)

The Mouth:

Couldn't decide if i even wanted to add a mouth as per usual with all my humanoid sculptures.. but i did some drawover tests first to see what expression i liked and to try to visualize it from multiple angles. (I was also testing the placement of stars on the hat brim here)

And then I redid the mouth like 3 times cause the angle just wasn't right (this went on for about the course of a week yay!)

Hair: woe baldfrin be upon ye

I made the hair strands individually first, and then since Sif has some of the hair at the back dyed black, i covered some of the tips with black wool (manually) (I think it would go much faster if i just took a marker to it, but hahaha i love pain and detailing!! )

And then the rest of it was positioning strands with sewing pins layer by layer, always looking at it from different multiple angles- sometimes tailoring the angle or swoop of individual hair flippies. At one point I thought the back looked too cluttered, but the hat covers a lot of it anyways!! yay for hiding mistakes! (imo this is a similar process to how cosplayers style wigs, but on a smaller scale and the same level of time consuming)

As always, look to your reference for guides, and I always do a whole bunch of drawovers over in progress photos to ascertain what was working and what wasn't.

Hat:

A trick to get a super pointy tip, make another tip seperately while keeping the connection point unfelted, and then combine the two to make super pointy hat!! (this also helps if you made the hat too short and need it to be taller. ask me how i know)

The embroidery on the hat brim was done in a hoop and then invisible stitched to the felted top portion. Technically you don't need a hoop but it helps keep the fabric tension, so you avoid puckers in your embroidery. You can also use iron-on stabilizer if your fabric is loose weave or particularly thin. this is the tutorial i used for the stars embroidery! particularly the fly stitch one, french knots, and the criss-cross stitches. highly recommend needlenthread for embroidery stitches and techniques! i learned all my embroidery from this single site alone.

For fabric, I think I used a polycotton i had in my stash,, unsure of the actual fiber content bc i bought it a long time ago. I used DMC Satin floss which was nice and subtle shiny but frayed a lot so it was kind of a pain to stitch with... but keep a short thread length and perservere through it!! After the embroidery was done, I folded up the raw edges and invisible sewed it to the top portion of the hat.

General shape:

Ok general structure of the body is this: wire armature body covered with black wool -> cloak lining & wire cage -> edge of lining is invisibly sewn to the main cloak at the hem -> head

Don't be afraid to mess around with the pattern, it's essentially a pizza with a slice taken out of it to form a steep cone shape!! Use draft paper before cutting into felt to save material! (i think i made like 3 cloaks before i was happy with the shape lol).

You can also hide the seam of the cloak and collars by gently messing up the fibers of the felt with your fingers or a felting needle btw! you can also sandpaper the seams according to Sarah Spaceman in this vid (highly recommend them for their in depth cosplay/crafting builds holy smokes), though since sif cloak is at such a smol scale, I just blended the seam with my felting needle.

For the lining wire cage section, I sewed in wire around the cloak, so the main rotation point is at the top neck area under the collar. These paddles are used to keep whatever pose I need the cloak to be in for stopmotion purposes. Then after the wire is done, I invisibly sewed the lining to the cloak at the hem (same technique as the hat brim to the lining there).

In hindsight, I should've used a thinner fabric for the lining, but i only had sheer white in my stash so had to go with double felt, thus resulting in a really bulky lining but oh well!

Heels:

started with the general boot shape, then tacking on the diamond shape heel stack and also diamond shape sole bc we're committed to the bit here. I skewer the boot onto the armature which also conveniently hides the connection point into the base to keep the whole thing upright and also I can rotate the boot to tweak the angle if needed.

Pins:

I kinda just trial and error'd jewellery wire with pliers into the pin shapes. They're itty bitty!! had a whole bunch of fails before i got two nice ones. A hot tip is to use needle nose pliers and wrap the wire around the tip to get a smooth circle shape!

Base:

I smoothed out the edge of a circular wood base with a dremel, and then used wood stainer to get the black colour. It ended up kinda looking like I took a sharpie to it, but whatever.... now i have a whole ass can of black wood stainer........ I then made a rough mountain of black wool and stuck the feet armature in. And now he's standing!!

Normally at this point when I'm done felting everything, to get a smooth finish, I'd take a small pair of scissors and carefully snip away any flyaway fibers, but this time, I just left them fluffy cause i think that's what sif would do :3c

Photoshoot:

Normally I do shoots using daylight but it was winter so the sun was nonexistent. So I broke out the home lighting setup aka dollarstore posterboard for a nice smooth background, and then hit it with the overhead Fill, side Fill 2, and Rim light, and use white paper/posterboard for bounce light if one side feels too dark. But if things are overexposed, you can move the light sources away until the harshness dims down. I'm using a Olympus mirrorless camera (handed down to me by my sibling so i dont remember the model exactly), which can connect to my phone as a remote so I can avoid shaking the camera when i take photos. Pretty nifty for stopmotion purposes! (yes my camera stand is a stack of notebooks, a tissuebox and some eva foam under the lens, don't judge me)

Stopmotion animation:

I'm still figuring stopmo out on my part, but my process was straight ahead animation ... move the cloak a cm, take a pic.... move another cm, click.... and repeat until i get a version I was happy with. My ref was the cloak animation from Gris (beautiful game btw). The 2d star animation was also done straight ahead using procreate, exported in png with a transparent background, and finally stitched together with the stopmotion footage in photoshop.

My turnarounds are also stopmotion! also secret hack, the turntable is a fidget spinner sticky tacked to a cake platter.

And i think that's all! i mainly wanted to share how I go about thinking about taking a 2d concept and moving it to 3D. I also didn't go in depth into how to actually do the needle felting bc I don't think I''d be very helpful I'm a very good teacher by telling yall to just keep stabbing until it looks right (i'm self taught for this hobby),,, if anyone wants it though, i can share a bunch of tutorials and other felters' process that helped me learn more needle felting!

Hopefully this was helpful to someone! Feel free to send asks if ya got any questions or if anything needs clarification! Or show me your works! I love seeing other people's crafts :3

here have a cookie for making it this far 🥐

[sunbeamedskies]

If you see articles and tweets about how the Star of David is now a symbol of fascism and think to yourself "maybe they have a point," then whatever you define as your antizionism has absolutely crossed the line into antisemitism

The Star of David is one of the most important symbols in Judaism. The fact that it is on the flag of Israel does not make it fascist. The government of Israel is separate from the symbol. Labeling such a widely used symbol by a marginalized people as fascist is incredibly dangerous and seeks to conflate Jews as a whole with the Israeli government- something antizionists continually claim people shouldn't do. So why are some doing it?

High control groups slowly ease you into believing nonsensical things. They provide "reasoning" and "logic" which goes largely unchallenged within echo chambers. People in these echo chambers are prone to believing it because they start to see it as real logic instead of bigoted, twisted reasoning. Even otherwise intelligent people can fall for their prejudices as they begin to view it as a form of justice

It is a fantasy that high control group leaders go from 0 to 100 in five minutes or refuse to answer any questions- they are usually much more manipulative

Please confront your biases. The Jews are tired

[harmonysanreads]

I NEED MORE PUPPY PHAINON, imagine that his beloved was offended by him, and he literally walks on his knees after her, asking for forgiveness, lol

Can be read as a continuation to this piece.

Phainon has become more partial to hating silence in his recent years.

It wasn't always this way though and in certain conditions, he finds himself craving a particular flavor of silence. But in the other, majority of cases, that deafening vacancy of noise reminds him of memories he’d rather forget. To placate that discomfort, he embellishes the void with sound no matter how small, or with his own voice.

Still, the ache is manageable, not voracious enough to make him dramatically restless. Where this faint modicum of control fails as well is when you, in all your cruelty, cast that curse of silence upon him as a direct consequence of anger.

In the name of the Titans, he prays you’d scream at him, hit him couple of times, destroy his house and belongings — anything, anything besides this nonverbal torture he can withstand. But he's not one to dwell in unfair complaints. Especially when your downturn gaze, pressed lips and crossed arms affirm so loudly that he's messed up.

By now, he’s exhausted almost every tactic in his arsenal to get you to acknowledge him again — apologizing, pinching his ears, making funny faces, wrestling a titankin and two whole repeats of that cycle. But you didn't let this opportunity go to waste in showcasing how good you’ve gotten in keeping a blank face in truly tumultuous situations, much to his chagrin in this instance.

It's only when you, most likely fed up with his antics, started to walk away that he scrambled to try again.

“My sun, my moon, my star, my light — please, please please please, look at me? Just once?” you're halted by a tug at your sleeve. A twinge of something softens your resolve as you realize how Phainon remembered, wrestling with his desires to not touch you until he's earned it again.

You can feel the weight of his eyes on your back, you pray that he didn't notice you waver. You steel yourself and stubbornly keep the act steadfast, conflicted before dropping the charade in favor of melting into his arms and forgetting altogether. But you can't, you’ve already promised to wring the confession on the errors of his ways this time.

You glare at the splinters in the earth, “Haven’t I told you once? If you keep calling me things that will never be yours, I might just become the same.” it takes everything to keep your voice even.

You don't need to look to picture Phainon's sure dumbfounded blinks, the churning and turning of metaphorical cogs as they shift in his head, neurons firing and synapses piecing together the implication of your cold comment.

You make the mistake of expecting only a gust of wind and are hit instead with a fully powered storm, in the form of a dull thud that you recognize as the hero’s knees hitting the ground when you're forced to spin as his arms find refuge in clinging to your thighs.

“I’m sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry — I am so SO sorry. I promise I won't do it again, I swear on the Flame-Chase — no, I swear on Aedes Elysiae that I will never do it again! If I do, may I face a fate worse than death itself. Just… just please, forgive me.”

There's an ache in your heart, sudden, quick and flighty. Kephale's light cradles you both, the corners of Phainon's eyes shine with something. By instinct, you try to escape the painful grasp of the hero, try to. Stumbling a few steps in what you intended would create space, resulting in Phainon getting dragged alongside your movements — sans a care in the Deliverer’s countenance.

“Phainon, I'm going to fall if you don't —” you try to bargain and fall, you do.

One ghost of a touch against the pavement is all you recall, so faint it can be disregarded completely. Your gasp gets muffled in something soft and firm, a mix of the perfume you recognize as yours and something else too convoluted to remember in the heat of the moment canopies your senses.

When the brief storm settles, a sigh slips past your lips. You don't even need to look up to know where you ended up landing.

But an insistent grasp angles your gaze against your wishes upward, you don't offer further resistance as pity grips your heart, “My dearest, beloved, my love, honeycakes with whipped cream on top, my life… won't you show me mercy?”

You calmly maintain Phainon's gaze, searching his face for any trace of dishonesty. The glossy blues of atonement prompts you to be petty one last time, “You don't care much about your life though.”

At this, Phainon completely deflates, collapsing in your arms. “Oh come on! Will you just say yes?”

At the faintest chime of the giggle you fail to quieten, he burrows further in the crook of your neck, arms coiling with a force you're no stranger to by now. Phainon shifts to adjust your position on his lap and changes tactics at the last moment, seizing your momentary lack of guard to launch an aimless attack of kisses.

You can only thank the barren side of Okhema city you two had chosen now, you do not want to think of what you’d have to do to get him off of you had this been a crowded place. The agony that came with the thirty something minutes of deprivation Phainon tolerated is much prominent, a burn lingers around your cheeks and neck. He refrains from completely leaning towards your lips though, still mindful that you haven't yet affirmed in words.

“Okay okay! You're forgiven, good heavens.” you heave, Phainon's exclamation of joy gets lodged in his throat prematurely, “But, you'll be sleeping on the couch today.”

You regret uttering that almost instantly, it's as if every particle of the hero’s life force has been drained mercilessly, appearing as though he might really cry this time.

You avert your eyes, forcing a sigh, “Ah, well, nevermind. You can sleep next to me — but I'll still be keeping a pillow barrier in the middle! Don't forget I'm still… still mad at you.”

As if on cue, Phainon springs back to life once more. Perhaps it's just your enervated eyes, but apparitions of what you can only assume to be puppy ears flick to and fro on top of his head. Caught in a trance, you reach out to ruffle those snow-white tresses and your lover melts.

You know your imposed punishment won’t last for more than ten minutes into the slumber and you’ll be coaxed with these antics again and again. But for this moment, you suppose it won't hurt to allow yourself to indulge and believe, that everything is okay.

[kyurochurro]

star trek iii review: 10/10 perfect no notes but it needed a big reunion hug for spock at the end 😔

[linipik]

Keith with traditional style tats🔥

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Awake!, magazine, Watchtower Pub., November 22, 1989

[akemiiya]

isat is praised a lot for its ludonarrative harmony and how the player's feelings are synchronised with siffrin's, but something i don't see mentioned much is how it also works the other way around -- the player trying to get certain dialogues/interactions (the player's influence on siffrin's actions), even if they go against siffrin's wants at the moment, are all justified in game.

for example, if the player continuously attempts to use siffrin's dagger on their allies, siffrin is having intrusive thoughts. and if the player repeatedly tries to go into the bathroom in act 5, siffrin secretly really wanted to monologue because he's a little obsessed with them lol

[a-most-beloved-fool]

I really wish that more pre-reform/pre-surak fics leaned into cyberpunk instead of going for "shirtless men with spears". Like if I'm being honest, it feels like people sometimes turn vulcans into the "noble savage" trope. Which is, I cannot stress this enough, very weird. You're writing about spacemen and you're somehow managing to be racist against native people. And like. I don't think it's deliberate, and I'm aware that this conception of vulcans has been around for decades and that many people have just kind of picked it up by osmosis, but. Like. It's not great. It is, dare I say, a little bit problematic. It also isn't at all accurate to canon? People just made that up. Because Surak died in the 4th century, just about 2000 years before canon, and do you know what his cause of death was? Radiation poisoning. When they say, "vulcans were extremely violent pre-reform, and nearly wiped themselves out," they don't mean they were having tribal battles on the backs of sehlats or whatever. They mean they were having nuclear warfare.

[chuumwah]

videogames with f/o … especially if they absolutely suck at it , and you get to laugh at them for losing again after demanding a sixth rematch — or you’re sitting beside them as they play , muttering over every little thing they’re doing wrong , taking the controller out of their hands to do it yourself ….

or maybe they’re weirdly ( or not-so-weirdly ! ) good at it and demolish you in every game you play — even if it’s something like stardew valley and they’re speedrunning perfection — snickering and looking over at you to watch how angry you get after losing again and again and again , maybe even completely tryharding just to see you get upset …… just sitting together with them after a long day , getting to relax and worry about mundane things rather than the outside world ♡♡♡

[70sscifiart]

For Control Panel Saturday, here's an alien navigating towards Earth. The artist is Joe Petagno, and it was used as a 1976 cover to Star Trek Log Five, by Alan Dean Foster

[alina-is-hollowing]

I love games that, upon completion, shatters my sense of reality, leaves me full of emotions for days or weeks at end, and changes me as a person, for better or worse

[idol--hands]

[chazchaschad]

POV: you’re the 18268397269272927th random object to show up on the bridge this week