#Table making for Html

[hua-fei-hua]

"where did you go" sanitizer got me again.

[welcomeinitiate]

Congrats to our top 3 teams!

Mr Ree Polka (tl) -- the first to finish the Round 3 Meta!

Kat: ) -- second to finish and our favorite submission (so far) to a certain puzzle!

The Hoes of Blackmoor Manor -- third to finish and the first team to solve a puzzle in the hunt! With that said, all three teams have declined running the 2025 welcomeinitiate mystery, so that title is still up for grabs! A few other updates: 1. There is now a Junior Detective version of Recipe Substitution, which is easier than the original version. Either version will work for the Round 1 meta puzzle 2. There are now self-serve hints on all Round 1 puzzles, including the meta. Simply submit "hint1", "hint2", or "hint3" to get hints for a puzzle. These do not count against your guess limit 3. We are still available for custom hints (unlimited for Round 1, 1 a day for Rounds 2&3), so def send a message if you're stuck on a puzzle!

[aseriesofunfortunatejan]

Writing one more #document to detail my portfolio and everytime I see that one newsletter I wrote during my first apprenticeship I think of that woman who went "next time can you not use HTML in your work [that I said was yours and I wouldn't participate in]? I don't understand it so it means I can't edit it :(" like yeah I knew this. I made a conscious choice. Tired of your shit

[pueriled]

Useful websites / links for rentry , bundlrs , gfx & etc for you!

symbol sanatorium - Links to a google document with a ton of symbols , kaomojis & text layouts. I use it for pretty much all of my recent rentrys.

sozaino.site - Website that's been making its rounds on rentry as of late, useful for graphic making. Has dividers, pngs, frames ~ etc if you have the creative touch.

sozai-good - site I found recently that has a lot of pngs you can download, also has frames and borders. In japanese but isn't hard to translate. Everything is also sorted into sections.

lottie lab - Website useful for animating, can be used to move around PNGs for rentry and the like. I don't use it much myself atm, but it's pretty easy to get the hang of.

scripted.neocities - Neocities full of code you can use for bundlrs or carrd. Also useful for stuff like spacehey and other sites that use CSS / HTML

blinkies.cafe - Easily make or find blinkies here! Great for beginners who want to make some simple things.

emojicombos - Search practically anything and you'll find an emoji combo for it. Useful for finding symbol / text combos and kaomojis.

unicode character table - Has pretty much every single symbol you've seen or needed. You can find what you want pretty easily due to its sectioning. Has stuff like arrows , dingbats , brackets , etc etc..

yaytext - Make your text 𝙼𝚘𝚗𝚘��𝚙𝚊𝚌𝚎! or U͟n͟d͟e͟r͟l͟i͟n͟e͟d͟!͟ easily with this website! May possibly break screenreaders in the process though so be warned.

lorem ipsum generator - Too lazy to generate a block of text to make a page look filled out, well look no longer! This site can quickly generate of block of pure gibberish to make it seem like there's actually text there! Good for newspaper / magazine gfx ~

And that's all ( for now )! I use most of all these sites and find them very useful! Hopefully one of them will prove useful to you too dear friend (❁´◡`❁)

[ano-otoko]

Yourspace, a modern "Myspace" page template

(Pictured above: the default layout, and my old customised page that I've used prior as an example)

I've been making pages for (formerly) Neocities and my personal site for going on 8 years now, and it turns out that I have a lot of old ass codes that I don't really like or use anymore. So, I've decided to start uploading some of them!

This is "Yourspace", a modern Myspace-based layout code that ditches the horrid table layouts, with bonus compatibility for mobile screens. It's not compatible with old Myspace themes as a result, but should be much easier to customise to make up for it. Intended for Neocities, Nekoweb, etc., it does require basic knowledge of HTML and CSS to use -- since it's older it's not my cleanest work, but should be readable enough that it's (hopefully) not difficult to work with.

☆ Downloads and more info at my site! ☆

[genderkoolaid]

I come late to organizing as a transgender activist. In doing so, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned transgendered people truly are everywhere and not just in New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C. I’ve learned many want to quietly assimilate into the white, heterosexual, middle class status quo that is the dominant culture of our nation. I’ve learned quite a few of us have no wish or desire for such assimilation — that for some of us, our greatest desire is to shake up that dominant culture, to question gender and identity on every level — social, biological, political and personal. I’ve learned that perhaps right at this moment there is a transgendered person — most likely an MTF transsexual or crossdresser, most likely a person of color, being brutally murdered. I’ve learned people much younger than I are coming out as transgendered in ways I never believed possible when I was their age and are challenging not only the status quo, but also calling on “old” activists like me to take another look around and see the world through their eyes. And I’ve learned that, perhaps like all other communities, we love to eat our own. Some of you reading this are aware of the controversies and conflicts swirling within the transgender community, most of which focus upon the organization GenderPAC. For those of you who aren’t up on it, here’s an abbreviated version. A significant number of transgender activists and community organizations have taken issue with GenderPAC’s expansion of its mission and vision to incorporate a larger view of gender rights rather than a specific and focused emphasis upon civil rights advocacy for transgendered people. Depending on whom you ask, this reinventing of GenderPAC is either the logical extension of its organizational vision to secure the rights of all people to free gender expression — or the cold-blooded abandonment of the very community by whom and for which it was created, nurtured and financially supported. Being the baby TG activist I am, I come to this drama late. Long after the battle lines were laid down. Long after sides were chosen, opinions formed and set in stone. Long after wounds (both real and imagined) were inflicted.

I’ve watched carefully for the past couple of years as the battle has played out online, in internet chat rooms, and on mailing lists. I’ve read statements from individuals and organizations that have taken a stand on the issue. I’ve received press releases and announcements from one camp or another; a battle of media propaganda that would make the veterans of the Cold War proud. And through it all, I’ve tried to be a rather casual observer, if one can be casual as they watch some of the best and brightest of their community consumed in an internal battle that threatens to tear the entire community apart. Of course my being a casual observer hasn’t stopped a few folks from demanding to know where I stand. I’ve been pulled aside at conferences and been given “information,” primarily innuendo and accusation, so I am up to speed on the situation. I’ve been directed to websites that were little more than character assassinations in badly laid-out HTML. And I’ve been emailed privately and off-list by those concerned I was going to make the “wrong choice.” Want to know what my answer to these people is? Okay, here it is — I really don’t care. That’s right. I DON’T CARE. You see, I believe almost everyone entangled in this controversy is acting in what they believe are the best interests of the community with which they feel most closely aligned. I believe they’re doing the best they can with what they have. I believe mistakes have been made by everyone involved, that the personal has become political in the most destructive of ways. I also believe in change and evolution; that even organizations that have had to be forced to listen to me and to consider my issues can learn from their mistakes and realize they must make a seat for me at the table if they are to truly realize the dream of civil rights for themselves and for others. But most of all, I believe in hope. I was asked point-blank whose side I was on. This is my answer: I am on the side of whoever has the guts and initiative to end this thing and make a real effort to move our community forward out of this debilitating and destructive conflict. I’m on the side of anyone who is more interested in healing the wounds than in proving who is right. I’m on the side of those who have the ability and the willingness to put aside their personal and political animosities and seek some way to bring together everyone involved to begin a healthy dialogue, one without finger-pointing and name-calling. Until that happens, I guess I’m on the side of those who are the most negatively affected by this dysfunctional family feud. In case anyone needs a refresher course as to who those folks are and the issues they are dealing with, allow me to introduce just a few of them. The transsexual FTM who has lost custody of his child when he began transition; the butch lesbian who lost her job because she refused to wear makeup or shave her legs; the crossdresser whose wife is seeking a divorce and custody of the children he adores; the effeminate gay man beaten to death and crucified on a fence on a lonely Midwestern plain; the 17-year-old MTF doing tricks in the back alleys of San Francisco because her parents kicked her out when they found “him” wearing dresses; the FTM who died of uterine cancer because he couldn’t get insurance approval for a hysterectomy after he had completed sexual reassignment. Ultimately, it is these transgender, transsexual and gender- variant people who have the most to lose if someone doesn’t step up to the plate to end this.

"Gender, Identity Politics, and Eating Our Own" by Alexander John Goodrum (2001)

[empty-movement]

Empty Movement's 2023 Revolutionary Girl Utena UPDATE

Fashionably late? As always. 2023 was a HUGE year for Empty Movement, so much so that to confess, we did a big fail in actually keeping up with sharing the stuff we did! OOPS. So finally, we proudly bring you: all the Revolutionary Girl Utena content we dropped in 2023. Essays, artbooks, CD information, you name it. Click below for the entire site update, or get it at the source, as always, at ohtori.nu.

In Analysis (Fan Essays): • seebee's essay The Power of Living an Embodying Narrative is about more than Utena, it's about the fandom--including us. We were both interviewed for this piece, and the result is an absolutely beautiful essay that has helped inform how we do Utena stuff going forward. Thank you so much for letting us be part of this! • seebee's VIDEO essay FILM CUTS BACK | transfeminism in utena absolutely blew our minds and it's so good we're listing it. Look at the title. Just go watch it, it rules. • Nicole Winchester's essay No Choice But To Become Witches: The Bishōjo-Demonic Phallic Mother Dichotomy in Revolutionary Girl Utena catches you up to speed on the academic discussion around what might best be described as the shoujo manga iteration of the Madonna-Whore complex. Then, naturally, it finds plenty to say about Utena. Great work that was well worth the coding!

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In From the Mouths of Babes (Translated Meta/Creator Content): • Cross X Talk, A Round Table Discussion Commemorating the Second Musical Utena GOGAI FUCKIN' GOGAI. Nagumo and friends bring us the final untranslated part of the 2019 Black Rose Musical's program guide: the monster interview with Ikuhara and the director of the musicals, Yoshitani. INCREDIBLE content here that 100% lives up to the first musical's similar encounter! A must read!! • The Rose Apocalypse's Ei Takatori Interview The director of the mysterious 1999 musical (yes the machine gun one, and YES WE HAVE MORE INFORMATION ABOUT IT COMING) interviewed in The Rose Apocalypse book. This...is that. Thank you so much to iris hahn for translating, and I can't wait to bring you more of this mythology!!! • The Utena Dossier Animage Magazine's June 1997 supplemental, this 36-page Utena tome has ben translated by Nagumo with editing by Ayu Ohseki. Because so much of the content is in its visual presentation, I worked the translation into the original scans! Check it out! (PS. Yes that is an entirely different gallery on the emptymovement.com domain, no this won't stay there, yes it has been a weird couple years.) The Dossier includes two long interviews that are also worked into html pages for easy viewing! The Auspicious Joining of Manga and Anime: Saito and Hasegawa For Whom the Director Smiles: Ikuhara and Kitakubo

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In Historia Arcana & The Bibliothèque (Untranslated Resources): • There are a lot of changes happening in this arena!!! How and where to place different materials has been a moving target, so I'll do my best! The sites don't quite reflect this yet, but Historia Arcana will be for cover to cover Utena media, including special magazine publications. Something Eternal's gallery, the Bibliothèque, will be for magazine articles, clippings, and other things. Major artbooks will likely be in both places, cross referenced. New books in Historia Arcana: • The Rose Spiral: Reflections on the Mythology of Utena While not strictly official, this is a fan published book of in depth analysis of Utena, circa 1998! Yep, cover to cover. • Revolution Dictionary (OST 1 First Press Bonus) Cross-referenced from Audiology, this is the bonus dictionary you only got if you grabbed it early! Cool! • Revolutionary Girl Utena Making of Visuals Book Art of UTENA I am mentioning this for completions sake and because I already uploaded it, but this is a cover to cover high resolution, uncleaned scan of the 1999 Art of Utena artbook. I am going to clean the scans, and ultimately be posting the official artbooks elsewhere. • Revolutionary Girl Utena Photobook: Rose Memories This special Animage bonus could be purchased for 700 yen, and back then, was probably a great way to keep the anime in your pocket! It's entirely shots from the TV series, though, so there's nothing specifically new. But I scan it all, baby. New books in the Bibliothèque: • Chiho Saito's 1999 Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Illustration Collection HI THIS IS A VERY BIG DEAL. Read more about why when you visit! TLDR? Here's some of the best artwork of Utena, rescanned and remastered by yours truly to be the best big big scans of big big beautiful Chiho Saito Art. This is a feast. I even made myself a calendar! (Note that the price is such that I don't make a profit on these, so if you're looking to donate, definitely go by other routes, haha.) You will find multiple ways to obtain the scans, and in more than one size. Either way you soak up the rays, enjoy 'em! New articles and clips in the Bibliothèque: • H! Rockin' on Japan Magazine Saito X Oikawa This fashion music magazine's July 1999 article has ALREADY BEEN TRANSLATED? Like, I am going to add the translation officially to the site of course, but holy hell Nagumo is amazing!! This article is actually the origin of a Saito art piece that uh, well. Now we know she went to a love hotel with movie Akio's VA. Cool! Anyway check it out! • Comickers Magazine, August 1997 This absolute monster find is an industry-focused magazine with this gorgeous spread and interview with Chiho Saito. It gets into how she does things. The making of Utena. All kinds of stuff. I'd LOVE to know more about this one!! • Comickers Magazine, June 1998 Again, an industry-focused publication, this time it's exploring the manga and the anime and how they compare. Again looks like a tasty meal!! • Volks Magazine, Spring 2022 YEP SCANS OF THE BOOK OF THE DOLLFIES. For a lot of us, this is at close as we get to these ludicrously gorgeous dolls. I included a few extra pages because they were just fuckin' cool and felt relevant. • Sega Saturn Magazine, December 1997 One of two grabs I got recently on Yahoo! Japan! This appears to be the first look announcement of the 1998 Utena video game! (Yes we have more on it, yes we will eventually post links.) • Sega Saturn Magazine, April 1998 This feature brings attention to the voice actors, who are all returning for the game! • Dengeki G's Magazine, January 1998 Another gaming focused magazine, with frankly a more adult edge, cheaply lets the readers know about Utena. These three game magazine moments are just a bizarre reminder of how we did things before the internet, LMAO

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In Audiology (Music and CD Information): • Complete information about the STAR CHILD - Girls Character Song Best album! You also definitely can't grab the two new remix tracks there. • Did you know there was a first press bonus dictionary for the first OST? I DIDN'T UNTIL RECENTLY. Now I know all about it, and so can you. Check it out! Obviously, scans available, both here and in Historia Arcana. • I FINALLY acquired a complete set of the Utena CD singles!! Check out complete track lists, scans, and information for ALL FIVE Utena singles. Yes. Including the movie Akio guy's one.

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In The Doujinshi Gallery: • Several dozen dounjinshi were uploaded earlier in the year, and can be found listed on the Site Update archive here.

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That's all for now, folks! There's so so so much coming. I have the episode 18 and 20 (!!!!) storyboards to scan, as well as a fully translated scanlation of The Duelist Bible. We're planning to do something for Anthy's rare LEAP YEAR birthday coming up, probably a musical stream or something! Love!

[pseuddamntired]

Needle Lace Resources

This is a very long post, so I'm including a cut.

Tutorial-like Things, Others' Work

An overview of the stages of needle lace (specifically learning from Alençon, I believe. They link to a documentary type of video on Alençon lace): https://www.taixtile.com/needle-lace-first-steps/. This blog has links to other resources (one link is broken, if I recall correctly).

A very approachable first project, I think. From a lace maker who has done very cool illustrations with lace, Maggie Hensel-Brown: https://youtu.be/OLuRpJ96p4Q?si=gqBWqYxa755gFozr

This channel has videos of the stages of needle lace making. They specifically demonstrate Irish lace, I believe. But the stages are very similar to or the same as the stages in Alençon lace. https://youtu.be/dZVagIFCnLc?si=d8lRnPsmz5iTM0Z_

Pierre Fouché has a video about making dense filling stitches and even doing short rows to makes curves (something I tried but did not yet succeed at): https://youtu.be/DK5cMQND3b8?si=qySmT9yaoTcpsUV9 He also does really cool bobbin lace illustrations by constructing patterns in cell-like units.

An embroiderer tries needle lace in two videos. In one of them she tries different styles from different places: https://youtu.be/eTO7dA4oyl4?si=VInx35kql115bIIo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Wa6-Qf5xw

Example of a different style of needle lace. Unsure what it is exactly. Some sort of cut work or reticella, idk: https://youtube.com/shorts/7DFogWC3tDI?si=uju74sPFbRj3_wrn

Sampler directions: https://youtu.be/oDKBfjDYBnU?si=shQYvaT4kAZD7BgV

Again, a more geometric style of needle lace. I don’t know the particulars of this style (styles?), since I’ve mostly been looking into styles similar to Alençon because I’m aiming for more illustration-like lace. This channel has multiple videos demoing and explaining that process: https://youtu.be/gJd6mkrsUCQ?si=AfVIiwljHvfismrX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6dk721UwW4

Not so much instructions but video of a very skilled lacemaker working on a project: https://youtu.be/01H2GdEXLrs?si=2suFHSG4Kwa6Yl2m

Another lacemaker's work on their blog. I don’t know if they do as much lace making as they do other needle arts https://www.robesdecoeur.com/blog/needlelace-my-work-so-far

A lacemaker's work... the site is older and kind of tricky to navigate. Like. there's no home button, as far as I can tell. Album of their work: https://www.lacemakerslace.oddquine.co.uk/album/index.html Home page, I think: https://www.lacemakerslace.oddquine.co.uk/

Useful/Interesting Things to Know

Alençon lace -- specific French style from the Alençon region, which has a history of point lace and a current institution dedicated to preserving the skills and producing lace. This is the style that I was looking at examples of to try and learn from.

Search terms like different styles of lace that I’m not qualified to talk about but you can look into and do research on: Battenburg, point de gaze (very very fine work, like gauze)… More to be added as I learn about them.

The terms "needle lace" and "point lace" are both used to refer to lace made with a needle. I'm unclear on if there are subtle distinctions between them or if it's simply a matter of location. But having versions of a search query for both terms should help find more results than just using one.

Encyclopedia of Needlework by Therese De Dillmont is an excellent resource to learn how to do different stitches. It seems these stitches mostly come from Irish lace, according to the book. HTML copy of book available on Project Gutenberg here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20776/20776-h/20776-h.htm I recommend using ctrl+f to search for "lace stitch" on the page. The end of each chapter in the HTML version seems to have a link to the Table of Contents that is at the end of the entire document. It has chapters for plenty of other needle arts, so it's a good resource all around.

If you want to find examples of needle lace, look on Wikimedia Commons! Using a variety of search terms will help you find more material for inspiration/observation than otherwise

If you want to design your own needle lace depicting objects, it might be worth looking at stained glass to see how larger shapes are broken up into smaller shapes that still feel complete.

You can use multiple colors! Let yourself use multiple colors, like stained glass!

Thoughts from the Learning Process So Far (some terminology used here, look them up so you know what the actual definitions are, but I’ll define what I mean by them)

Tacking vs Couching... I'm unsure about the actual definitions so I may be using them wrong here. In the videos I’ve seen tacking seems to be making a stitch that runs along the way the cordonnet will run. Couching seems to be just when the thread that secures the cordonnet comes up through the backing and goes down through the backing at the same point. With these definitions… Tacking went faster for me than doing couching, but it feels a lot less secure and precise for the form of lace I’m making. Unless I made the tacking stitches perpendicular to the cordonnet's path, the outline cord moved too much due to tension. If it's perpendicular and not a very short stitch, it might get in the way of your filling stitches or binding off stitches. Which might be fine, since you pull them out anyways. But it would also mean more holes in the backing, and at some point the holes are too close together and might tear the backing and pattern. I don't like that. Couching—much, MUCH more tedious for me because I’m not practiced at making the needle come up in exactly the right spot. but it feels more secure to me. The outline seems to be less affected by tension as you work. And I took some shortcuts for couching that helped. I don’t couch the doubled cord, instead I whip stitch back over the already-secured cord. I might make a post to demonstrate what I mean. It kind of messes with the shape/placement of my cordonnet, but for the sake of my impatience I’m willing to sacrifice the precise shape.

Backing material... To use fabric in backing like the instructions usually say, or not? Idk. For me, it’s hard to find the right hole for the couching stitches when I can't see my pattern from the back. It took a lot of trial and error until I got a feel for how to predict where my needle would come up. I don't like the way the poke-and-check method of stitching the cordonnet down tends to rip the pattern up (at least, with my easy-to-access materials. Probably better with better materials and more practice. Using my thumb to find approximately the right spot helped, but not enough). So I just used a sandwich of tape/paper/tape as my backing. If you're willing to fuss around with fabric in your backing, it might make it easier to remove the couching threads after you're done, and when I tried. The directions I've seen usually say to use a backing of doubled-up fabric, clay paper (I'm unsure what this is. might be a thicker paper than cardstock, or it might be paper made to contain clay particles. Probably more like the first option), and contact paper. My last attempt at making a backing used notebook paper (or other type of paper) with packaging tape on both sides to provide a smooth surface and structure. I think it worked fairly well, and I didn't have to figure out where to buy contact paper (or figure out exactly what contact paper was).

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The moral injury of having your work enshittified

This Monday (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

This week, I wrote about how the Great Enshittening – in which all the digital services we rely on become unusable, extractive piles of shit – did not result from the decay of the morals of tech company leadership, but rather, from the collapse of the forces that discipline corporate wrongdoing:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

The failure to enforce competition law allowed a few companies to buy out their rivals, or sell goods below cost until their rivals collapsed, or bribe key parts of their supply chain not to allow rivals to participate:

https://www.engadget.com/google-reportedly-pays-apple-36-percent-of-ad-search-revenues-from-safari-191730783.html

The resulting concentration of the tech sector meant that the surviving firms were stupendously wealthy, and cozy enough that they could agree on a common legislative agenda. That regulatory capture has allowed tech companies to violate labor, privacy and consumer protection laws by arguing that the law doesn't apply when you use an app to violate it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But the regulatory capture isn't just about preventing regulation: it's also about creating regulation – laws that make it illegal to reverse-engineer, scrape, and otherwise mod, hack or reconfigure existing services to claw back value that has been taken away from users and business customers. This gives rise to Jay Freeman's perfectly named doctrine of "felony contempt of business-model," in which it is illegal to use your own property in ways that anger the shareholders of the company that sold it to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Undisciplined by the threat of competition, regulation, or unilateral modification by users, companies are free to enshittify their products. But what does that actually look like? I say that enshittification is always precipitated by a lost argument.

It starts when someone around a board-room table proposes doing something that's bad for users but good for the company. If the company faces the discipline of competition, regulation or self-help measures, then the workers who are disgusted by this course of action can say, "I think doing this would be gross, and what's more, it's going to make the company poorer," and so they win the argument.

But when you take away that discipline, the argument gets reduced to, "Don't do this because it would make me ashamed to work here, even though it will make the company richer." Money talks, bullshit walks. Let the enshittification begin!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

But why do workers care at all? That's where phrases like "don't be evil" come into the picture. Until very recently, tech workers participated in one of history's tightest labor markets, in which multiple companies with gigantic war-chests bid on their labor. Even low-level employees routinely fielded calls from recruiters who dangled offers of higher salaries and larger stock grants if they would jump ship for a company's rival.

Employers built "campuses" filled with lavish perks: massages, sports facilities, daycare, gourmet cafeterias. They offered workers generous benefit packages, including exotic health benefits like having your eggs frozen so you could delay fertility while offsetting the risks normally associated with conceiving at a later age.

But all of this was a transparent ruse: the business-case for free meals, gyms, dry-cleaning, catering and massages was to keep workers at their laptops for 10, 12, or even 16 hours per day. That egg-freezing perk wasn't about helping workers plan their families: it was about thumbing the scales in favor of working through your entire twenties and thirties without taking any parental leave.

In other words, tech employers valued their employees as a means to an end: they wanted to get the best geeks on the payroll and then work them like government mules. The perks and pay weren't the result of comradeship between management and labor: they were the result of the discipline of competition for labor.

This wasn't really a secret, of course. Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty.

Tech giants went to great lengths to shield blue badges from green badges – at some Google campuses, these workforces actually used different entrances and worked in different facilities or on different floors. Sometimes, green badge working hours would be staggered so that the armies of ragged clickworkers would not be lined up to badge in when their social betters swanned off the luxury bus and into their airy adult kindergartens.

But Big Tech worked hard to convince those blue badges that they were truly valued. Companies hosted regular town halls where employees could ask impertinent questions of their CEOs. They maintained freewheeling internal social media sites where techies could rail against corporate foolishness and make Dilbert references.

And they came up with mottoes.

Apple told its employees it was a sound environmental steward that cared about privacy. Apple also deliberately turned old devices into e-waste by shredding them to ensure that they wouldn't be repaired and compete with new devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

And even as they were blocking Facebook's surveillance tools, they quietly built their own nonconsensual mass surveillance program and lied to customers about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Facebook told employees they were on a "mission to connect every person in the world," but instead deliberately sowed discontent among its users and trapped them in silos that meant that anyone who left Facebook lost all their friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

And Google promised its employees that they would not "be evil" if they worked at Google. For many googlers, that mattered. They wanted to do something good with their lives, and they had a choice about who they would work for. What's more, they did make things that were good. At their high points, Google Maps, Google Mail, and of course, Google Search were incredible.

My own life was totally transformed by Maps: I have very poor spatial sense, need to actually stop and think to tell my right from my left, and I spent more of my life at least a little lost and often very lost. Google Maps is the cognitive prosthesis I needed to become someone who can go anywhere. I'm profoundly grateful to the people who built that service.

There's a name for phenomenon in which you care so much about your job that you endure poor conditions and abuse: it's called "vocational awe," as coined by Fobazi Ettarh:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Ettarh uses the term to apply to traditionally low-waged workers like librarians, teachers and nurses. In our book Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin and I talked about how it applies to artists and other creative workers, too:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

But vocational awe is also omnipresent in tech. The grandiose claims to be on a mission to make the world a better place are not just puffery – they're a vital means of motivating workers who can easily quit their jobs and find a new one to put in 16-hour days. The massages and kombucha and egg-freezing are not framed as perks, but as logistical supports, provided so that techies on an important mission can pursue a shared social goal without being distracted by their balky, inconvenient meatsuits.

Steve Jobs was a master of instilling vocational awe. He was full of aphorisms like "we're here to make a dent in the universe, otherwise why even be here?" Or his infamous line to John Sculley, whom he lured away from Pepsi: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"

Vocational awe cuts both ways. If your workforce actually believes in all that high-minded stuff, if they actually sacrifice their health, family lives and self-care to further the mission, they will defend it. That brings me back to enshittification, and the argument: "If we do this bad thing to the product I work on, it will make me hate myself."

The decline in market discipline for large tech companies has been accompanied by a decline in labor discipline, as the market for technical work grew less and less competitive. Since the dotcom collapse, the ability of tech giants to starve new entrants of market oxygen has shrunk techies' dreams.

Tech workers once dreamed of working for a big, unwieldy firm for a few years before setting out on their own to topple it with a startup. Then, the dream shrank: work for that big, clumsy firm for a few years, then do a fake startup that makes a fake product that is acquihired by your old employer, as an incredibly inefficient and roundabout way to get a raise and a bonus.

Then the dream shrank again: work for a big, ugly firm for life, but get those perks, the massages and the kombucha and the stock options and the gourmet cafeteria and the egg-freezing. Then it shrank again: work for Google for a while, but then get laid off along with 12,000 co-workers, just months after the company does a stock buyback that would cover all those salaries for the next 27 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

Tech workers' power was fundamentally individual. In a tight labor market, tech workers could personally stand up to their bosses. They got "workplace democracy" by mouthing off at town hall meetings. They didn't have a union, and they thought they didn't need one. Of course, they did need one, because there were limits to individual power, even for the most in-demand workers, especially when it came to ghastly, long-running sexual abuse from high-ranking executives:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html

Today, atomized tech workers who are ordered to enshittify the products they take pride in are losing the argument. Workers who put in long hours, missed funerals and school plays and little league games and anniversaries and family vacations are being ordered to flush that sacrifice down the toilet to grind out a few basis points towards a KPI.

It's a form of moral injury, and it's palpable in the first-person accounts of former workers who've exited these large firms or the entire field. The viral "Reflecting on 18 years at Google," written by Ian Hixie, vibrates with it:

https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627373

Hixie describes the sense of mission he brought to his job, the workplace democracy he experienced as employees' views were both solicited and heeded. He describes the positive contributions he was able to make to a commons of technical standards that rippled out beyond Google – and then, he says, "Google's culture eroded":

Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision.

In other words, techies started losing the argument. Layoffs weakened worker power – not just to defend their own interest, but to defend the users interests. Worker power is always about more than workers – think of how the 2019 LA teachers' strike won greenspace for every school, a ban on immigration sweeps of students' parents at the school gates and other community benefits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Hixie attributes the changes to a change in leadership, but I respectfully disagree. Hixie points to the original shareholder letter from the Google founders, in which they informed investors contemplating their IPO that they were retaining a controlling interest in the company's governance so that they could ignore their shareholders' priorities in favor of a vision of Google as a positive force in the world:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

Hixie says that the leadership that succeeded the founders lost sight of this vision – but the whole point of that letter is that the founders never fully ceded control to subsequent executive teams. Yes, those executive teams were accountable to the shareholders, but the largest block of voting shares were retained by the founders.

I don't think the enshittification of Google was due to a change in leadership – I think it was due to a change in discipline, the discipline imposed by competition, regulation and the threat of self-help measures. Take ads: when Google had to contend with one-click adblocker installation, it had to constantly balance the risk of making users so fed up that they googled "how do I block ads?" and then never saw another ad ever again.

But once Google seized the majority of the mobile market, it was able to funnel users into apps, and reverse-engineering an app is a felony (felony contempt of business-model) under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to install an ad-blocker.

And as Google acquired control over the browser market, it was likewise able to reduce the self-help measures available to browser users who found ads sufficiently obnoxious to trigger googling "how do I block ads?" The apotheosis of this is the yearslong campaign to block adblockers in Chrome, which the company has sworn it will finally do this coming June:

https://www.tumblr.com/tevruden/734352367416410112/you-have-until-june-to-dump-chrome

My contention here is not that Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in personnel via the promotion of managers who have shitty ideas. Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in discipline, as the negative consequences of heeding those shitty ideas were abolished thanks to monopoly.

This is bad news for people like me, who rely on services like Google Maps as cognitive prostheses. Elizabeth Laraki, one of the original Google Maps designers, has published a scorching critique of the latest GMaps design:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Laraki calls out numerous enshittificatory design-choices that have left Maps screens covered in "crud" – multiple revenue-maximizing elements that come at the expense of usability, shifting value from users to Google.

What Laraki doesn't say is that these UI elements are auctioned off to merchants, which means that the business that gives Google the most money gets the greatest prominence in Maps, even if it's not the best merchant. That's a recurring motif in enshittified tech platforms, most notoriously Amazon, which makes $31b/year auctioning off top search placement to companies whose products aren't relevant enough to your query to command that position on their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Enshittification begets enshittification. To succeed on Amazon, you must divert funds from product quality to auction placement, which means that the top results are the worst products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

The exception is searches for Apple products: Apple and Amazon have a cozy arrangement that means that searches for Apple products are a timewarp back to the pre-enshittification Amazon, when the company worried enough about losing your business to heed the employees who objected to sacrificing search quality as part of a merchant extortion racket:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11

Not every tech worker is a tech bro, in other words. Many workers care deeply about making your life better. But the microeconomics of the boardroom in a monopolized tech sector rewards the worst people and continuously promotes them. Forget the Peter Principle: tech is ruled by the Sam Principle.

As OpenAI went through four CEOs in a single week, lots of commentators remarked on Sam Altman's rise and fall and rise, but I only found one commentator who really had Altman's number. Writing in Today in Tabs, Rusty Foster nailed Altman to the wall:

https://www.todayintabs.com/p/defective-accelerationism

Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it.

His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed.

Altman's been around for a long time. He founded his startup in 2005. There've always been Sams – of both the Bankman-Fried varietal and the Altman genus – in tech. But they didn't get to run amok. They were disciplined by their competitors, regulators, users and workers. The collapse of competition led to an across-the-board collapse in all of those forms of discipline, revealing the executives for the mediocre sociopaths they always were, and exposing tech workers' vocational awe for the shabby trick it was from the start.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

[seedlinggames]

Nobody needs another TTRPG taxonomy but I made one anyway

Posted here: https://seedlinggames.com/blogging/discourse/game_taxonomy_part_1_v_1.html I have a second blog post that is going to explain the small diagonal line, but basically it's that I think there is influence between those two camps that people don't seem to talk about much, probably due to internet discourse reasons

A million people have already done this - I'm kind of assuming you have vaguely absorbed the existing Internet discussions, and are familiar with terms like OSR, Story Games, etc. If you haven't, run away now and save yourself. But Six Cultures Of Play is probably a prerequisite to understand what I'm talking about, or at least what I'm complaining about.

I will try to, as much as possible, only discuss games that I have played. A lot of taxonomies seem to be written by someone who clearly likes one type of game a lot more than the others. For instance, I will not be discussing LARP because I don't have any relevant experience. I'm also not claiming that I am discussing the complete set of all games that exist, but I think I have played enough of them propose a taxonomy. If you're curious, I have an approximately complete list of games I've played or run here.

What is a TTRPG?

First we're going to have to look at everyone's other least favourite subject of conversation.

TTRPGs have 2 or more people taking on the following 3 roles:

A player, who is responsible for one or more characters who are the protagonists of the story.

A GM, who is responsible for the remainder of the story, such as providing additional characters and other aspects of the environment that the main players exist in. To do so they might determine the outcome of uncertain events or interpret rules agreed upon by the table.

An author, who provides additional, reusable material without being present. I'm using the term "author" for a lack of a better one, but it includes game books, blog posts, maps, drawings, or even fixed principles transmitted orally from game group to game group. These serve to facilitate or even replace GMing, as well as to introduce new ideas to the table without someone being physically present.

The same person often takes on different roles at different times, sometimes in the same game.

If you have only one of these roles, you are probably writing a book, doing improv, or some other activity. Which is of course totally fine.

This isn't the only definition you could come up with, but I think most people would agree it isn't totally wrong, and it's a lens that I'll be using to discuss the game taxonomy.

Maximalist Games

Apparently "maximalist" means something specific in art but I am not educated in such things and might be using the word wrong.

Characteristics of a maximalist game:

The three roles: clearly present and distinct, with the GM and author each taking on a large responsibility for the game experience.

Modularity: Semi-modular: There is a main game system which is designed to be extended by other modules, but these modules cannot be used with other games easily. A game book is typically not a self-contained experience and games are usually open-ended in duration.

Rules: A lengthy, complex ruleset with subsystems for resolving different parts of the game that are likely to come up, primarily oriented around the success or failure of an action and its consequences.

Characters: The complex game mechanics provide an opportunity for players to develop a distinct character before playing them, defined by game mechanics. Character and player motivations are usually aligned.

Narrative structure: Campaigns usually follow conventional narrative structure, but this is driven primarily by the GM, or by adventure modules, which define an outline of the narrative.

Who makes them: Often require more resources to create and thus are made by corporations, but that is changing.

Relationship to other media: While often inspired by fantasy novels, their larger budget and longer history has allowed some of them to develop their own genre conventions distinct from other media, and in some cases have inspired movies and books.

Solo games: Rare, due to the prominent role of the GM.

"Trad" games are a subset of these but a) I hate that word and b) I think the genre, starting especially with 4E and other inspired games, have gone in some very different directions. It roughly corresponds to "Fight D&D" in the Between Two Cairns taxonomy, but some games in this category involve no fighting at all.

Narrative Mechanics Games

The three roles: Blur the lines between GM and player more freely.

Modularity: Usually not very. Each game is made to create a specific experience, and the blurring of GM and player roles makes adding external content more complicated.

Rules: Focused on resolving problems in the context of narrative structures. Rules may facilitate pacing, allow for storytelling outside of linear time, allow players to temporarily take on a GM-like role, and allow for players to work together to create conflict between their characters.

Characters: Mechanics facilitate creating characters according to genre conventions with defined relationships to other characters and to NPCs. Player and character motivations are often not aligned.

Narrative structure: Rules are designed to support conventional narrative structures and genre conventions.

Who makes them: The focused scope of these games mean that they are often made by individuals rather than corporations, but there is a trend towards some of them being made by mid-sized organizations. Long development cycles may be needed to provide a polished experience, leading to some amount of professionalization.

Relationship to other media: Usually strongly inspired by other media, allowing you to create stories similar to movies, books, TV shows, etc.

Solo games: Rare, with Ironsworn as a notable exception.

Some "story games" fall into this, but I think "story games" has split into two meaningfully distinct categories. I've met enough people who only like one of the two categories. I think they are perceived as more similar than they are because there's less internet drama about the difference between them.

Prompt-based storytelling

The three roles: Blur the lines between the GM, player and author, with the GM often being absent.

Modularity: Usually self-contained experiences with limited modularity.

Rules: Often entirely forego mechanics for failure or success; mechanics tend to be minimal and about making suggestions regarding the story to tell, with the written text sometimes acting primarily as a GM or even player who is not present.

Characters: Character creation is usually a minor to nonexistent part of the game, with characters being defined by decisions made at the table. In some cases, all characters are already predefined. Characters are usually defined in words rather than numbers. Player and character motivations are rarely aligned.

Narrative structure: Stories often forego conventional narrative structures, and are focused around exploring relationships, ideas, or experiences. If a narrative structure is defined, it is usually in the form of a defined endpoint, with the purpose of the game being to explore how the characters get there.

Who makes them: Leans heavily towards DIY or single creators. Often comes in formats other than books.

Relationship to other media: Inspiration comes less from established genres and more from life experiences. Genre fiction is less likely to be an inspiration.

Solo games: Very common, due to the reduced role of the GM.

Adventure/exploration games

The three roles: Blur the lines between GM and author, both at the table and culturally.

Modularity: Are highly modular: not only are supplements and adventures often interchangeable, but are often not tied to specific systems.

Rules: Have relatively short rulesets focused on generating situations (on the GM side) and resolving danger (on the player side).

Characters: Characters are mostly created organically in play through interactions with the environment, including the tools at their disposal. Random generation is common. Character and player motivations are usually aligned.

Narrative structure: Campaigns often do not follow a typical narrative structure, aside from perhaps an escalation in danger, scope and/or strangeness.

Who makes them: Their modular nature means that they are often created in a DIY manner, through zines, blog posts, and informal discussions, though mid-size companies are also prevalent.

Relationship to other media: Inspiration from other media is often mostly vibes-based, with genre fiction, folklore, and even musical genres and political movements (for better or worse) being prominent. It doesn't seek to emulate the characters or narrative structure of other genres.

Solo games: Relatively common, usually provided by an additional module that may be specific and general-purpose, often focused on a GM emulator known as an "oracle."

"OSR" games are a subset of these, but a good number of these also make many OSR people very angry. It roughly corresponds to "Door D&D", but dungeon crawling is not inherent to this genre.

Other ways of looking at these categories

You could also map these on axes:

distinct GM/player/writer role vs combined roles: maximalist vs prompt-based at opposite ends of this spectrum

Highly self-contained vs highly modular: narrative vs adventure/exploration

Strong genre conventions vs naturalistic approach: maximalist/narrative vs adventure/exploration/prompt based

Resembles a D&D vs does not really resemble a D&D: maximalist/adventure/exploration vs narrative/prompt based

for symmetry I want to put another axis for maximalist/prompt based but I can't think of anything they have in common. Oh well.

But I also don't think this is a complete enumeration of all possible types of games either - this is some kind of n-dimensional space that has only 4 blobs on it

The part of the taxonomy blog post where you realize this is actually just me going on about my own preferences this entire time

I've played and enjoyed all 4 types of games, but putting this together has helped me figure something out - why it is that I like both the NSR side of OSR games and like the "super weird" story games. And why I don't seem to be the only one, even though these are often talked about as opposites. Because if you split story games into two genres, the similarities between prompt-based games and adventure/exploration games comes out.

[study-diaries]

Day 6 [Forms In HTML]

Introduction To HTML

Day 2 [Multimedia Elements In HTML]

Day 3 [Table in HTML]

Day 4 [Link Tag In HTML]

Day 5 [Lists In HTML]

Forms are basically used for collecting user information. And they are really important to learn. Here's a simple form in HTML:

Code:

Line By Line Explanation:

<form>: Used for creating forms. All the form elements go in this tag. Action: When submitted, data is sent to this file or URL [index.html] Method="post": Sends data

<label> : This describes the input tag for="___": Connects the label to the input with id="name" id : gives a unique identification to the tag <input>: It's used to make the form elements

<input> Type Elements :

type="text" : A simple text box is created.

type="email" : A box to input email.

type="checkbox" : A small square that users can tick. Can select multiple options using this.

type="radio" : A small circle, you can only select one option.

type="submit" : A button that submits the data to the server.

<textarea>: Accepts multiple lines of text. rows="4": It creates 4 lines cols="30": It creates 30 characters

<select> : Creates a drop-down list <option>: Creates an item in the dropdown. value="colorname": This is the data sent to the server if chosen.

Output For The Code:

_______________________

Hope This Helps !!

[the-nox-syndicate]

SysNotes devlog 1

Hiya! We're a web developer by trade and we wanted to build ourselves a web-app to manage our system and to get to know each other better. We thought it would be fun to make a sort of a devlog on this blog to show off the development! The working title of this project is SysNotes (but better ideas are welcome!)

What SysNotes is✅:

A place to store profiles of all of our parts

A tool to figure out who is in front

A way to explore our inner world

A private chat similar to PluralKit

A way to combine info about our system with info about our OCs etc as an all-encompassing "brain-world" management system

A personal and tailor-made tool made for our needs

What SysNotes is not❌:

A fronting tracker (we see no need for it in our system)

A social media where users can interact (but we're open to make it so if people are interested)

A public platform that can be used by others (we don't have much experience actually hosting web-apps, but will consider it if there is enough interest!)

An offline app

So if this sounds interesting to you, you can find the first devlog below the cut (it's a long one!):

(I have used word highlighting and emojis as it helps me read large chunks of text, I hope it's alright with y'all!)

Tech stack & setup (feel free to skip if you don't care!)

The project is set up using:

Database: MySQL 8.4.3

Language: PHP 8.3

Framework: Laravel 10 with Breeze (authentication and user accounts) and Livewire 3 (front end integration)

Styling: Tailwind v4

I tried to set up Laragon to easily run the backend, but I ran into issues so I'm just running "php artisan serve" for now and using Laragon to run the DB. Also I'm compiling styles in real time with "npm run dev". Speaking of the DB, I just migrated the default auth tables for now. I will be making app-related DB tables in the next devlog. The awesome thing about Laravel is its Breeze starter kit, which gives you fully functioning authentication and basic account management out of the box, as well as optional Livewire to integrate server-side processing into HTML in the sexiest way. This means that I could get all the boring stuff out of the way with one terminal command. Win!

Styling and layout (for the UI nerds - you can skip this too!)

I changed the default accent color from purple to orange (personal preference) and used an emoji as a placeholder for the logo. I actually kinda like the emoji AS a logo so I might keep it.

Laravel Breeze came with a basic dashboard page, which I expanded with a few containers for the different sections of the page. I made use of the components that come with Breeze to reuse code for buttons etc throughout the code, and made new components as the need arose. Man, I love clean code 😌

I liked the dotted default Laravel page background, so I added it to the dashboard to create the look of a bullet journal. I like the journal-type visuals for this project as it goes with the theme of a notebook/file. I found the code for it here.

I also added some placeholder menu items for the pages that I would like to have in the app - Profile, (Inner) World, Front Decider, and Chat.

i ran into an issue dynamically building Tailwind classes such as class="bg-{{$activeStatus['color']}}-400" - turns out dynamically-created classes aren't supported, even if they're constructed in the component rather than the blade file. You learn something new every day huh…

Also, coming from Tailwind v3, "ps-*" and "pe-*" were confusing to get used to since my muscle memory is "pl-*" and "pr-*" 😂

Feature 1: Profiles page - proof of concept

This is a page where each alter's profiles will be displayed. You can switch between the profiles by clicking on each person's name. The current profile is highlighted in the list using a pale orange colour.

The logic for the profiles functionality uses a Livewire component called Profiles, which loads profile data and passes it into the blade view to be displayed. It also handles logic such as switching between the profiles and formatting data. Currently, the data is hardcoded into the component using an associative array, but I will be converting it to use the database in the next devlog.

New profile (TBC)

You will be able to create new profiles on the same page (this is yet to be implemented). My vision is that the New Alter form will unfold under the button, and fold back up again once the form has been submitted.

Alter name, pronouns, status

The most interesting component here is the status, which is currently set to a hardcoded list of "active", "dormant", and "unknown". However, I envision this to be a customisable list where I can add new statuses to the list from a settings menu (yet to be implemented).

Alter image

I wanted the folder that contained alter images and other assets to be outside of my Laravel project, in the Pictures folder of my operating system. I wanted to do this so that I can back up the assets folder whenever I back up my Pictures folder lol (not for adding/deleting the files - this all happens through the app to maintain data integrity!). However, I learned that Laravel does not support that and it will not be able to see my files because they are external. I found a workaround by using symbolic links (symlinks) 🔗. Basically, they allow to have one folder of identical contents in more than one place. I ran "mklink /D [external path] [internal path]" to create the symlink between my Pictures folder and Laravel's internal assets folder, so that any files that I add to my Pictures folder automatically copy over to Laravel's folder. I changed a couple lines in filesystems.php to point to the symlinked folder:

And I was also getting a "404 file not found" error - I think the issue was because the port wasn't originally specified. I changed the base app URL to the localhost IP address in .env:

…And after all this messing around, it works!

(My Pictures folder)

(My Laravel storage)

(And here is Alice's photo displayed - dw I DO know Ibuki's actual name)

Alter description and history

The description and history fields support HTML, so I can format these fields however I like, and add custom features like tables and bullet point lists.

This is done by using blade's HTML preservation tags "{!! !!}" as opposed to the plain text tags "{{ }}".

(Here I define Alice's description contents)

(And here I insert them into the template)

Traits, likes, dislikes, front triggers

These are saved as separate lists and rendered as fun badges. These will be used in the Front Decider (anyone has a better name for it?? 🤔) tool to help me identify which alter "I" am as it's a big struggle for us. Front Decider will work similar to FlowCharty.

What next?

There's lots more things I want to do with SysNotes! But I will take it one step at a time - here is the plan for the next devlog:

Setting up database tables for the profile data

Adding the "New Profile" form so I can create alters from within the app

Adding ability to edit each field on the profile

I tried my best to explain my work process in a way that wold somewhat make sense to non-coders - if you have any feedback for the future format of these devlogs, let me know!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Disclaimers:

I have not used AI in the making of this app and I do NOT support the Vibe Coding mind virus that is currently on the loose. Programming is a form of art, and I will defend manual coding until the day I die.

Any alter data found in the screenshots is dummy data that does not represent our actual system.

I will not be making the code publicly available until it is a bit more fleshed out, this so far is just a trial for a concept I had bouncing around my head over the weekend.

We are SYSCOURSE NEUTRAL! Please don't start fights under this post

[tovieplays]

      

NEW MODS VIDEO IS LIVE NOW!!! FOLLOW FOR MORE

 | Visual mods |

*No music notes mod for sims 4: by Krys29 https://modthesims.info/d/540385/no-music-notes-for-sims-4.html

*No Zzz for Sims 4 https://modthesims.info/d/540287/no-zzz-for-sims-4.html

*Missing plumbob by  https://ko-fi.com/s/b737098fd3 

    | Gameplay mods |

*SimCare https://www.patreon.com/posts/simcare-early-91664292 

*Mccc - https://deaderpool-mccc.com/ 

*Weerbesu UI cheats https://www.patreon.com/posts/ui-cheats-v1-16-26240068

*Smarter Pie Menu: Searchable https://www.patreon.com/posts/smarter-pie-menu-81030137

*Steady Sit & Seat Any Sim: https://www.patreon.com/posts/mod-steady-sit-83645525

*Steady Sit & Seat Any Sim: https://www.patreon.com/posts/mod-steady-sit-83645525

*Mini-Mod: Greetings: https://www.patreon.com/posts/nc4t-mini-mod-65202018 

*First Impressions: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44832679 

*Mod: Turn On TV: https://www.patreon.com/posts/mod-turn-on-tv-70261108 

*Control Any Sim https://modthesims.info/d/634595/control-any-sim-v1-2-4.html 

*Healthy living mod : https://www.patreon.com/posts/healthy-living-102663074 

*Autonomy Toggle : https://www.patreon.com/posts/bg-autonomy-31612207 

*Midnitetech power outages mod https://www.patreon.com/midnitetech/posts 

*Midnitetech doom scrolling https://www.patreon.com/midnitetech/posts 

* Nerdy doll Cupids corner lower refresh rate https://www.patreon.com/posts/cupids-corner-108827515 

*UTOPYA Brawling Mod https://www.patreon.com/UTOPYA_cc/posts

*UTOPYA make the bed mod https://www.patreon.com/UTOPYA_cc/posts

*UTOPYA pool table mod https://www.patreon.com/posts/functional-pool-97981170 

*Waronkcc functional cars https://www.patreon.com/posts/61053382 

| Overrides |

*Luxe Gift Box Override by LargeTayterTots https://www.patreon.com/posts/luxe-gift-box-by-104977636 

*Presents Overhaul by Apricot Rush  https://www.patreon.com/posts/day-9-presents-94902582 

*Simkatu Computer Desktop Override https://www.patreon.com/simkatu/posts

*Ceiling replacement by surprise peach https://surprisepeach.tumblr.com/post/625013453550157824/this-replaces-the-ugly-white-ceilings-with-a 

*Pc game override by Ebonix https://www.patreon.com/posts/33560276

*Simkatu override flower arrangement https://www.patreon.com/simkatu/posts

*Dynamus Remote Override https://modthesims.info/m/10185139 

*Nv games Failed Energy Animation https://www.patreon.com/posts/small-mods-69121597 

*Default mop replacement LargeTayterTots  https://www.patreon.com/posts/default-haul-87565236 

| Romance mods |

*Purchase jewelry by rex :https://konansock.tumblr.com/post/751599316869791744/small-mod-purchase-jewelry-on-phones 

*SIMS4 MOD | Kiss-n-Grind 1.6 Waved Kiss https://www.patreon.com/posts/107870579 

*Simkatu cry mod https://www.patreon.com/simkatu/posts

*UTOPYA passionate gifts https://www.patreon.com/UTOPYA_cc/posts

| Cas and lighting mods |

*Vyxated Reflective CAS Background https://www.patreon.com/posts/reflection-cas-93254283

*Weerbesu More columns in CAS https://www.patreon.com/posts/more-columns-in-27751117

*No blu by LUUMIA https://luumiasims.com/post/176043227929/its-been-well-over-a-year-since-noblu-v1-came-out 

*Luumia NoGLO https://luumiasims.com/post/167217001494/i-released-the-noglo-mod-about-a-year-and-a-half 

*Simp4sims simpsetters https://www.patreon.com/posts/overhaul-01-57965057 

*Softerhaze Sunblind https://softerhaze.tumblr.com/post/708700219869691904/sunblind-the-landscape-images-above-excluding 

*K-Hippy K-505 Terrain Mod https://k-hippie.tumblr.com/post/171136399326/k-505-terrain-mod-replacement-4-all-worlds 

*CONTROLLED POSITION MOD by northern siberia winds https://www.patreon.com/posts/cas-tuning-mod-1-81104796 

shout out to all the incredible creators!

@plumlace @deaderpoolmc @twistedmexi @amellce @needcoffee4that @mizoreyukii @pandasamacc @midnitetech @nerdydoll-sims4 @utopya-cc @waronkccs-blog @largetaytertots @apricotrush @simkatu @ebonixsims @nv-gamesgames @vyxated @luumia @simp4sims @softerhaze @k-hippie @northernsiberiawinds

[fictionfixations]

A Date Sim?!?! by Kershy (LCF Fic Rec)

SUMMARY One evening Kim Rok Soo read 5 volumes of the novel “The birth of Hero”. This novel hit all of his critical points, immediately enchanting him. Hence, reading 5 volumes at once. He decided to take a break and read theories about the character he liked, Cale Henituse. While he was a minor villain in the prologue, Kim Rok Soo liked him for some reason. However, there was nothing online, no evidence at all of this novel’s existence. After going so far as to the 7th page of the search request, he found an obscure diary with a visual novel, inspired by books. Kim Rok Soo liked manhwa editions of his beloved novels, so the kinetic visual novel sounded interesting too. Kim Rok Soo didn’t even care about the suspicious source of the game. He just wanted to see this novel visualized (or, more like his favourite character). However, he fell asleep during the download. And when he woke up… Oh, well. Or I woke up in a date-sim as my favourite minor villain?! To hell love interests! I’m going to turn it into an investigation puzzle and uncover the mystery of my beloved character!

I JUST WANNA SAY

i find this really cool

basically its LCF except theres a SYSTEM (its actually really really cool), it is following the main story (so no school au) however there are also plenty of non-canon things

and krs is investigating a bit more on what happened to the og (i have reason to believe its different then what happened in canon)

the work skin html stuff i dont remember what you refer to it as but i mean im hoping you understand, its REALLY cool and theres a LOT of unique types so its not just a repeat of one window doing everything

also everyone BUT krs!cale has a dialogue window so like every time they talk a dialogue window will appear for them

some of them are shared, im sure its probably because of so and so reason of why theyre being grouped but listen i have a brain doesnt mean i use it

anyway so its like a date sim kind of thing except its also partly choose your own adventure as you can make your own choices of what you want cale to do (so you can 100% do one where you dont romance any character, though its recommended to read through all options as it'll show different sides of cale)

LOOK cool date window

LOOK AT THESE DIALOGUE BOXES LIKE HELLO??? THERES SO MANY

other stuff theres like so many different types im baffled 😭

its just

really really cool and as a person whose used workskins before i cannot imagine the formatting hell it is to be working with so many different types 💀 cause what i do is copy and paste cause its just the same thing but i just change some of the stuff and thats it but oh man using so many different types 😭😭😭

anyway i feel it brings something unique to the table and i find it really really cool

right now theres 69k words lmfao last updated 11th of march (as of this post)

maybe give it a try? perfectly understand if its not your cup of tea 👍👍👍

[maxybabyy]

happy new year friends!

to celebrate the new year, i wanted to go through some of wonderful stories i read in 2024. going through the tags and my bookmarks, i have come to the realisation that I still suck at keeping track of my favourites, so these are just the one still stuck in my head.

five (+some) full length fics

sour and delicious, secret and unrepeatable by @officialmood (maxiel)

i know this was written for that trope you hate fest, but i absolutely loved every word of it. all the tiny details, the shoe tying scene that still lives in my head, daniel preferring adynamic sex, max thinking he cannot have both. all of it is just so fucking good. I think it is such an incredible fic and such a good way to explore the maxiel dynamic.

table in the back by @janinaduszejko (galex)

i think if i could take one fic with me into 2025, it would be this one. i am more of a peripheral galex enjoyer, but this just hits ALL the right notes for me. the angst and misunderstanding is just so perfect that i can still feel the hurt in my finger tips. 10/10, will read again to keep george in miserable company.

rosetta stone by @janinaduszejko (carcar)

unlike galex, carcar does have me in a chokehold. oscar learning spanish and being called out by Fernando, dropping hints that they should move in together, only for carlos to tell him he loves him first. it's so fucking great.

everything carcar by @testarossa is also so fucking perfect, but especially make a mess, lioness is so, so good.

the entire Yours verse by @loquarocoeur (lestappen)

i still remember reading the first chapter of yours and not knowing what to think, only for it to turn into the most wonderful series. i am such a sucker for close-to-canon fics and this just done so well. i don't even know what to say, it's just sooooo fucking good, and i am in love with the dynamic between max and charles.

four espressos (and a lifetime) by @ferrarisma is another wonderful lestappen fic. i love the 'they grew up together' trope and the identity porn is just so perfect!

Cad Dad, a Dad of cats by @33max (max-centric)

max-centric fics are such a weakness of mine. cat dad max bringing the cats to races so he can make sure sassy gets her medication is so, so lovely and wonderfully written.

i have also read the first two chapters of famiglia-familie by @lsunstreakerl and i am very intrigued! gp taking in kid max is such an interesting take on it, and I cannot wait to read the rest.

four scenarios for tumblr fics omega max has a very special place in my heart and both @officialmood (post) and @lost-in-fandoms (post) have made such wonderful posts about it. i love all the different ways omega verse can be used to explore the maxiel dynamic!

girl max (my beloved) is another trope that I love, and the winter warmers posts (day one, thirteen) by @thewindowatkirkland have just been absolutely perfect!!

daniel's partner dumping him for max is also such an incredible fic by @officialmood. it's such a fun take, and daniel is wonderful as the spiteful, insecure ex who kinda, maybe also wants to fuck max now?

also the absolute masterpiece by @boxboxlewis that is max dating ricardo from melbourne while daniel, you know, is totally cool with it.

three works of my own Writing this i realised i haven't written a lot this year, here or ao3. i really hope that will change this year, but i just wanted to highlight some of the works that i had a good time working on in 2024:

cameras in the traffic lights

this was my first big html coding project, and while it was such a pain in the end (and still not perfect even now!) the process of it all was so much fun. i really liked working with the format, and the writing process of the tweets, the timelines, and the planning of it was so different to the prep-work i usually do for fics. the response to the fic has also been very overwhelming, and i am so glad so many people seemed to enjoy it.

max run club

max run club is another pet project of mine. it's such a fun world to play in, figuring out how to characterise max when we only really see him during daniel's time on social media/work out apps, the whole scanielax aspect of it. i don't know if it will ever be a full length fic, but i am not done with the series.

toothbrush fic

it's getting late, and i don't really have that much to say about this. but this was also very fun to write, and i still think if you love someone, you should offer to brush their teeth once in a while.

[commehter]

The current cover art for The Spirit Tale of Fire Lord Ozai.

The 1st attempt before going back to tweak colors (especially on the background gradient) and a second round of highlights.

Clean close up of the crown itself without the foreground flames obscuring it.

A closer-to-canon version of the crown, removing the scorching/scar and embroidery on the band.

I've used this image in a few places now (Royal Road, Spotify, Discord. Should probs add it to AO3 as SToFLO's main home. See below edit.) for SToFLO, but I haven't really talked about it. So, let's do that!

First, white fire is HARD. (Especially in ATLA's style, which doesn't seem to keep to a brightest/hottest flame near the source pattern, so much as a bright spots where they look good until the flame shape abruptly ends method.) It's ridiculously difficult to keep the flames from looking ghostly (adding some yellows and reds buried under the white so they can just barely be seen helped with that) to say nothing of trying to keep them bright without turning them into a blob of white. I kinda hated myself for making that a plot point while I was working on this. Worse, depending on monitor/phone settings, this image can be either blinding or a dingy gray. I eventually had to accept that I could either scrap them (which I clearly did not do) or make my peace with the situation.

I really like how the reflections on the gold came out on my second attempt. I waffled over doing them the first time because the canon images I found for reference (They were surprisingly hard to find. Everything is either an establishing shot too far out for good detail, or a close up on the face that cuts out the crown.) don't seem to put any special shine on the crown at all. Some feedback encouraged me to at least try it to help tie the foreground and subject into a cohesive image. I'm glad I listened! It looks so much better than the first version for that factor alone.

It's not literal to the fic (barring sudden inspiration -- Agni might enjoy tagging along as a tiny sphere cradled in the crown, just because?) but I effectively slapped Zuko's scar on the crown and amused myself thoroughly doing so. I probably should have gone back and tweaked the background colors again to up the contrast between the two elements. (Maybe if there's a third version I'll remember to alter that.)

The band looked very plain as it was, so I added some embroidery. Flames and waves seemed Fire Nation appropriate, so that's what I ended up adding.

The finished piece is by no means perfect, but overall I'm quite chuffed with how it turned out. I learned a good bit making it, that's for sure.

Edit: I tried adding the image to AO3 in a few different ways, but failed to find any I liked. Doubly so when taking into account the differences in display size/dimensions for desktop/mobile. Formatting across systems is a pain.

Rejected options included: in the summary (couldn't make it look nice with AO3's limited HTML -- no float, table was a clunky workaround at best), in the opening notes (crowded, edging toward bloated), and above the text of the first chapter (same crowding problem, but uglier for being below the horizontal break). Oh well. It was a nice thought.

Edit2: Might go back and try adding it to a later (but still early) chapter, if I can find a place it would make sense to insert it. It should be a complementary addition to the story, not a distraction, ya know?