#and I need pdfs to put on my kindle

[hyacinthi-mortem]

AO3 ISNT WORKING PROPERLY FOR ME HELP IM ABT TI HAVE A CRISIS

[earlgreytea68]

Just some examples of how suboptimal the Kindle self-publishing set-up is:

(1) My author bio got rejected with the error "You have used a prohibited word." I kept reading it over, like, "What word could possibly be triggering this????" Before taking out the link to my Tumblr page. That was the trick, I guess you can't have links in your author bio. But...it feels like Amazon could...tell you that......?????

(2) Likewise, Amazon kept rejecting my manuscript for completely unspecified reasons. Over and over, just rejecting it, without telling me why. I kept following the directions and following the directions, tweaking tiny little things like, "Is this the problem? Is THIS the problem??" Finally I was like, "Is it because it's not a PDF????" It DOES say a PDF gives you the best results but I was on a computer where print-to-PDF wasn't working (don't even ask...) so I thought I'd try with the .doc, which it also claims to accept. When I got to a computer where I could PDF, yes, it accepted the same exact manuscript with zero issues. So......it seems like Amazon doesn't actually accept .docx documents and it shouldn't claims that it does?????

(3) Even though I used the exact Amazon template, downloaded from Amazon, that it told me to use for the paperback manuscript, it still told me that it had uploaded with sizing errors, but don't worry, it would fix it for me. I feel like their exact template should not have sizing errors, but I apparently have high standards.

(4) My book still doesn't show up when you search Amazon. In fact, if you search my title plus author name, you get zero results. I Googled this issue to see if it IS an issue or maybe searching just takes a while to kick in. The suggestions were: (a) Just give people a direct link. Okay, but....maybe people might want to search your book, too...???? A feature Amazon claims to have.....??? (b) Sometimes Amazon assumes people don't actually want to find your book, even when they are searching deliberately for it, because Amazon decides your book isn't good enough for people to actually want to read, and so it just doesn't return it in search results and instead returns other books it thinks people should want to read more. ?????? (c) Put the title of your book in a keyword search box, which I'm going to try, but seems a little silly, but okay. (d) Don't even bother to title your books with a title, just title them with a summary of what's in them, you're not special enough to have a title. (e) Contact Amazon directly to ask them to make your title and author name searchable, sometimes Amazon automatically spellchecks your title and author name and/or otherwise doesn't enter the information correctly and you need to contact them directly to fix the problem.

This is a small selection. When I tell you it took me several days of multi-hour sessions to get the technology to work even a little bit, I'm not lying.

[bomberqueen17]

matcha top sewalong pt 2

OK so the pattern directions have you as step 1 finish all your seam allowances. Normally I do that after I've sewn the seams, so this seems a bit odd. Especially as I'm making a muslin, I am going to disregard that instruction.

One pattern reviewer pointed out as well that there's no reason to finish the top seam, where the fronts and back are joined. Because the shoulder detail goes on over that. So, sew the fronts to the back at the shoulder wrong sides together, press the seam allowance flat, and just put the shoulder detail on over it. So I'll keep that in mind.

My first tip here is that I've learned that every project I make gets a plastic bag, which I scrawl on in sharpie with the name of the pattern. As soon as I cut something out, it gets flung into that plastic bag. This helps because 1) my sewing room is chaos and 2) I frequently relocate myself, and if i can grab A Bag that is the project, then I can take it with me, and if I can't then that thing is never getting finished and will become part of the sewing room chaos ambience background forever. So I had my plastic bag (i just save ones stuff comes in-- the nice ones from tomboyx or wherever with slider closures get used for projects with notions I'm carrying around, but this one was just a random bit of packaging) and I threw the pattern pieces in as I cut them-- wrote their names on them in chalk too, that really helps. But that's just my I Might Forget What I Was Doing Before I Get Back To This tip.

OH my other big tip: PDF patterns, you can send the instruction books to your Kindle, and then you have them as long as you don't lose your ereader. Also critical if you have to relocate your sewing operations ever. Or if sometimes there's hand-sewing you take with you or whatever. E-reader!!!!!! I only just figured this out so I know it sounds obvious but it was not to me.

The first thing it has you do is to sew the center front seam, and then finish the front neck opening. It's confusing in the diagram, showing a v-shaped notch between the top edges. That's slightly misleading, as they're straight panels at that point; you're just meant to sew them together, and then stop at the marked notch so you can get it on over your head, and then finish the open edges. The V-shaped opening that is the defining feature of this garment is caused, later, by gathering the body panels to the collar, but at this point they are still straight.

I think I'll just hem the two front pieces separately, and then join them, possibly just basting them together at first. One reviewer had complained that sewing it up to that notch didn't leave her enough room to get it on over her head, so for my muslin I'll certainly keep that in mind. I do plan on making this blouse more than once, so I'll make notes on the pattern pieces about height of neck opening, width of panels etc. And I fully expect I'll need to cut back the shoulder detail, so I kept the embroidery to the inner part.

So. 1) Join center front pieces.

2) stitch shoulder seams / attach shoulder detail right, I'm going to sew the shoulder seams wrong sides together, and press the seam allowance flat, and then attach the shoulder detail as described. I'm going to try it on at that point and see how much wider than my shoulder it is, but I don't think I'm going to make any alterations just yet. Because I think gathering it to the collar is going to affect the fit, and I want to see how that goes.

Ah, they have step 3 as attach sleeves-- I should've used the sleeveless version as my toile, I just didn't want a sleeveless blouse. LOL. Well, if you're doing this, do a sleeveless toile to simplify things. As for me, I am going to skip attaching the sleeves, and do the collar first. I know why they did the sleeves first, once everything's gathered it's gonna be a pain in the ass to get it to lie flat to get the armscye and sleeve head lined up. But I can handle that. Better that than having to rip the sleeve off to change it later.

So, for my toile, 3) Make And Attach Collar. This means you need to gather the whole neckline except where it's under the shoulder detail. So you do the front and back separately. I usually gather shit by hand, my machine doesn't baste with a long enough stitch. So i'll do that-- long gathering stitches along each front panel, and then around the back panel, and each will stop at the edge of the shoulder detail. OK cool. Set that aside.

Make the collar-- I'm going to handsew the last bit, so I'll follow the hand-finishing directions. Fold long edge of one piece 5/8" to wrong side, press. Unfold, place right sides together, sew the inner curve and the two short sides stopping short of where your pressed fold is. Clip corners, turn right side out, poke corners out, press. Sure.

Now attach the collar, this is the fun bit. Find the collar center, match it to the center back neck, pin in place. Now you pull your gathering stitches to make the fabric short enough to match the collar. It's just endless fussing to make it the right length. You just gotta gather the shit out of it, make it look even as much as you can, and then pin it down. Sew it, and then press it, and then trim the seam allowance down inside once you've got it right.

Then the finish, turn the whole thing inside out so you've got the open edge of the collar set over the already-sewn seam from the other side. Then you sew that down, and the pattern instructions have a nice diagram of what stitch to use.

Now I'll try it on and see. And i bet I'll be like mm yeah there need to be like five inches less of shoulder. So I will decide, do I try to re-cut the armscye, and re-cut the sleeve to match? Or do I just. Unpick part of the shoulder detail and gather the shoulder seam under that too? So the shirt is massively gathered, not just at the collar but also at the shoulders? I'm going to have to see how that looks. (Why attach the shoulder detail first, you ask? Well because otherwise getting its inner edge under the collar is going to be a pain in the ass, and keeping the front and back gathering from being under it also would be a pain in the ass. So I'm going to basically baste it on, and then re-topstitch it down once I've got the fit right.)

I know, I also could have gone ahead and cut a size 10 or whatever. But I was worried about the sleeves. Because, as a plus-sized person, my frame is not really larger than a straight-sized person's, but it is more padded. Bony areas like shoulders generally don't get very much larger as a person goes up in weight-- I don't have broad shoulders, but I also don't have disproportionately narrow shoulders. What I have are huge fucking tits, which is a really common weight distribution. But I also have chubby arms. They're not notably large, but they're not skinny either; they're proportional to my plus-sized body. So in a not-so-well-graded pattern like this, yes I have the shoulder measurement of a size 10 person. But I surely will not have the bicep measurement of a size 10 person. Because I have size 24 tits. So I wasn't about to make a size 10 blouse, discover that the chest ease was adequate, and then not be able to get my arms through the sleeves. And I can't cut a size 10 body and size 24 sleeves and expect the armscye to match the sleeve head at all.

Again, I'm not mad at this company, they've obviously put a lot of work in over the last couple of years and I see fantastic reviews of their more recent patterns from sewists of all sizes, and I see that their models always now include plus-size ones, and clearly so do their pattern testers, from the reviews I find when I search up the pattern names. But this is just an example of the kinds of stuff you have to think about when sewing. And I'm so glad so much work has been done, in the online sewing communities of the world, with brave people unashamedly posting their measurements and speaking out about their experiences and leaving honest reviews of things. This is a pretty recent development and I've only been on the fringes of it, so I'm very glad of it.

But that's why I cut this out of not super expensive fabric, because if I have to mess around with the armscyes a lot I'm going to have a lot of shreds on the floor before I'm done. But the reviews say there's so much ease, so I have a lot of room to work with, and will likely still have a usable garment, and if I don't, I can pick this collar and shoulder detail off and put them onto a new set of body panels, and try again. No big deal!

So that's my game plan, later when I'm in front of a sewing machine, and we shall see how that goes. Get the collar on, double-check the shoulder fit, maybe do something wacky to make it work, then lay it flat and get the sleeves on, then sew up the side seams, and then worry about hemming things.

And then I will finish my seam allowances, once I know the thing fits. I am contemplating doing the topstitching along the center front seam by hand, in embroidery thread-- I embroidered the black shoulder details in blue, and then I was thinking I'd topstitch the blue body panels in black, just to finish it nicely and make it something really special. Because I do think this pattern deserves a special final result!

Then I'll transfer my markings back to the paper pattern so I know what I did, and then I can cut out another one in more expensive/fussy fabric, and spend more time embroidering and whatnot, because I do feel like the SL company's aesthetic really lends itself to that kind of execution. That's what drew me to their patterns anyway, the really crunchy hippie Slow Stitching stuff.

(Hilariously, as I talk about sewing more, and as I've done some garment sewing going along, I'm realizing that my dreams of achieving some kind of coherent wardrobe are doomed by the fact that the things I love do not fall into a single aesthetic bucket. All I want is hand-stitched linen garments with hand-embroidered details... and also holographic glitter spandex............ well, I can do the Earth Mother Who Does A Lot Of Party Drugs look even though literally not one of those things is true. Keep 'em guessing, I say.)

(Yes the latest Cashmerette Club pattern is out btw and it is a knit party dress with draped details and I am going to make it out of holographic glitter spandex why do you ask)

(yes cashmerette is why i am so spoiled and kicking up such a fuss about having! to alter! a pattern! why, don't you know that I am the sample size??!! yes i am basically cashmerette's sample size and it is an incredible luxury to just feel so fucking normal and i wish everyone could have that just a little bit in their lives. I Am The Typical Shape and I make their middle size with basically no adjustments every time and never have to fix anything. It's incredible. It's a fluke. I wish everyone that kind of luck. but no that is not how sewing or fashion work, not really, everyone has to alter a pattern sometimes, because there actually is no such thing as a "typical" body, everyone's got a proportion or two that's unique somewhere.)

So anyway. We'll see how well i stick to this plan. Yes I am fretting about unrelated things that's why I'm writing this instead of trying to do anything, LOL.

[ettaberrytea]

that is insanely cool that you did that all yourself !! it looks so great; so much respect !! I read it on a PDF and also had to read it twice; it qws so interesting going through a 2nd time knowing everything. if I may say, I would love to hear any interesting things you've written as you've read !! and sorry, I'm just SUPER EXCITED because I haven't met someone else who's read it before!

💖 You've found the right corner of the internet! I recommend reading Andy Robinson's autobiography to enhance your "A Stitch in Time" reading experience. A lot of my little note relate to that. Andy put a lot of little bits of his own life into ASIT like how Garak gets suddenly sent off to boarding school. Andy was taken from his mom by a judge and was sent to a boarding school where he was abused. There's little parallels all throughout ASIT that are really interesting once you know what to look for.

Andy's autobiography is called "stepping into the light." Here is a link. (You don't need a kindle, you just need the kindle app to read it btw). Oh, also I should mention that it deals with the topic of CSA (child sexual assault).

Thank you for being excited about ASIT with me! 💖

[blazing-dynamo]

How does one format epubs? I have a lot of free time and love formatting, I'd love contributing to the effort of fixing all the doctor who epubs!

It’s complicated, but doable.

First, it depends on the style of PDF. There are some that are crisp scans of every page, scanned by the Camels, (btw the camels if you’re still around you’re a real one.) and for those, I open them in Microsoft Word, because word is like 80% good at converting it, where other PDF eaters suck.

From there, I check out some common problems:

1. Footers: just remove them all. They don’t help in ePub land

2. Headings: for consistency, I change all the Headings to Agency FB, because it’s included in windows and matches the vibe of the headings in the book

3. Chapter Breaks: I turn on the “View Whitespace” mode, and delete everywhere that says section break, and then make sure there’s a page break at the end of every chapter, after the title page, foreword, etc. I also add “Chapter X” on the line before the title of the chapter. The EDAs are not consistent in how they handle chapter titles and I crave consistency so I add it.

4. Table of Contents. Word is Too Powerful™️ and recognizes the table of contents and imports it as a smart, clickable ToC, which, again, we don’t need. You can’t really edit it or anything so I just delete it, and type up a new one, leaving off the page numbers because we won’t need them in epic land.

5. Formatting. This is the bulk of the issue. I use word WildCards, which are similar to RegEx, to find all cases of a lowercase letter or comma followed by a paragraph mark, and replace it with the same character followed by a space. Then I also look for instances of a paragraph mark followed by a lower case letter, and replace it with space plus the letter. Then I replace all Tab characters with a space. Then I look for paragraph marks followed by a space and replace them with just a paragraph mark. This gets like 94% of the bad formatting that the Calibre/kindle/etc auto ePub conversion makes reading insufferable. I try to catch as many of the rest while doing the remaining steps.

6. Formatting cont’d: then, I change the Normal style to be 12pt Garamond. This isn’t important because this is ultimately up to the reader’s chosen font in their eReader, and I don’t embed Garamond, but putting it in Garamond makes it easier for me to notice when something is wrong because I’m used to seeing Garamond while making these.

Then, I use Find/Replace to add a highlight to everything that has the same indent as the Normal style, so I can then see everything weird because it won’t be highlighted. I then scrub through the book and set the problem paragraphs to the Normal style, which then Corrects the indents. I make sure when I do this to watch for italics and make sure that the style didn’t revert them to normal. This happens on short paragraphs with one or two words, and one of which is italicized, as well as paragraphs where the entire thing is italicized.

I also in this step scrub through to find mid-chapter breaks, the favorite storytelling device of the EDAs, and make them uniform. Word will make it into various levels of after-paragraph spacing, but I set the paragraph to normal, and then just leave two empty paragraphs between the sections. This tends to import the best across devices and fonts.

Finally, I make sure that after each chapter and chapter break, the first paragraph isn’t indented, to match the style of the print EDAs.

7. Still formatting, but different. I then do a scrub through and make sure I didn’t screw anything up or forget something. The problem with RegEx is that it will do exactly what you tell it to, even if that’s not what you wanted to happen. So oftentimes my table of contents or copyright page is borked, and I have to go fix it. Once I have it in a decent shape, I

8. Import into Calibre. Just drag and drop the DocX into Calibre and it’ll get added as a book. I then use the metadata editor to download the metadata from the web, so it’ll have good info on it. None of the online sources regocnize this as a series, though, so I add it myself.

9. Convert to ePub: in the Calibre library list I right click the book and convert it to ePub, default settings. DocX->ePub conversion is really simple because they are both just HTML pages under the hood, so it imports perfectly.

10. (Bonus steps) once an ePub, I press T to edit the book, and import Agency FB and Agency FB Bold, and then press the Table of Contents button, to select where the in-reader chapter list points to. And then I use just hyperlinks to make the in-book ToC clickable to take it to the same place.

The uglier, hand-typed PDFs are basically the same, but then I also have to do a bunch of spell check to catch all the typos. And then those don’t have italics at all, so depending on the book, and if I have a copy of it physically, I scan the physical book with my eyeballs to catch italics and add them back to the DocX. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the baffling choice to just remove them completely.

I know from importing the PDFs a long time ago there’s another person who scanned/typed the books, but I haven’t seen the state of them to know if they’ll need extra TLC.

It’s kind of a whole lot! But also if I get a The Camels PDF I can knock it out in about an hour.

If you wanted to take a crack at it, by all means! Though I really need a proofer, so if you wanted to just start reading and use the form links I have in the folders to report the issues you find, that would be wonderful. Bonus points, you get to read the EDAs lol.

[caffiend-queen]

Hey! 🥰

I love your work and was wondering if you have any tips for someone hoping to get their book published? I’ve written something but haven’t a clue how to go about copy write/who to approach. Any help would be amazing. Your stories always help me escape when I need it so thank you for that 😘

I'm so glad you're thinking of publishing! I'd be happy to help, though there's certainly more successful authors here. My experience is only through self-publishing, so that’s what I can share with you.

I'll list out as many sources as I can, this might get a little long... Tumblr besties, feel free to share with anyone thinking about publishing their books, or please offer advice that’s helped you succeed. I'm not an expert, but I can share what worked for me.

Your first step is deciding where you want to publish it. Kindle Books on Amazon.com has given me 99% of my sales. It might be worth trying it out first and putting your book into KDP Select, which means you can only sell through Amazon for a 90-day period, but you have a more favorable search algorithm with Amazon and access to Kindle promotions. Start an author account on KDP.com. You can format your book for publication through their free app Kindle Create. There's lots of answers to your questions here.

When you're ready to move into other book sites, or maybe you don't want to be bound to Kindle alone, there's several others that have great potential. Rather than setting up an account on each one, you can get a free account with Draft2Digital They can help you convert your manuscript from Word.doc or PDF to ePub and MOBI and then help you distribute your books to several different outlets, like Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, KOBO, etc. So much easier!

Your second step: have you thought about a cover? Your cover and your "back cover blurb" are hugely important to your success. KDP does have a free cover maker, but if you want something higher quality, think about Fiverr.com. Check out their book cover designers. Pick one that is familiar with Kindle book formatting. Most cover artists there are very quick and very inexpensive. Mine never cost more than $20-$30.

It helps to go on Amazon and take a look at the competition. What do the books look like in the category you want to sell in? How do they write their blurbs? Kindlepreneur.com has excellent free courses on categories, covers, and a million other helpful topics. PS: you will find out that categories are KEY to book sales and visibility.

Your third step: when you do finally launch your book ask everyone you know to review your book or at least leave a rating. This is one I'm still struggling with, but reviews and ratings are really, REALLY crucial to your success. It helps to add an author's account on Goodreads.com, which is associated with Amazon and is very popular with readers. It's another good way to start your fanbase. (I even nag my sisters into reading and reviewing, though it kills me to know they’re reading my smut. They usually give me five stars, aside from one sister who will NEVER give me higher than four stars because, “she doesn’t want it to look like she’s giving me an easy five because we’re related.” She is pure evil.)

Your fourth step: advertising? Personally, I find most advertising didn't work for me, It was also very expensive. You're better off building an email list and collaborating to build your audience base. Nick Stephenson has some free videos and tutorials that were really helpful for me.

So... hopefully, that'll get you started and help you on your way. Please let me know when you're getting ready to launch. It's really helpful to have your book listed for free for two or three days when you launch to push your book higher in the category search. And please alert me, so I can read it and review and share with everyone here.

Good luck! You got this, baby!

[tls123]

hellooooo, hiiii, how are you? 💖 sorry to bother you, but i read your post recommending orv and i had a question! did you read that epub on mobile, and if so, which app did you use? i've been looking for an epub reader that supports html5 but i can't seem to make it work :( thanks in advance, friend! 🥰

hello to you!!! you're not a bother at all, please don't worry about that 🧡📎 i'm happy to answer any questions for you

personally i simply converted the epub file so that i could put & read it on my kindle, i've actually never read an epub file on my phone so i can't think of any apps to recommend.

i could convert the file to a pdf for you? i am not sure how it would handle the footnotes, so we would have to experiment together and that would still mean you'd need some sort reader for your phone, though pdfs are more popular so maybe it'd be easier to find one <3

let me know if i can do anything for you 💌

[ashadnoor1777]

I will do book cover design, book cover or ebook cover design

This is not another boring description, I know exactly what you need :

If you are an author or a publisher, then you surely know that all ebooks need an amazing cover. Let's be Honest, books with good graphics & eye-catching fonts sell more copies.

I am Ashad Ahamad, having 3 years of experience in Kindle covers, ebook covers, and Print book cover design.

My job is to make sure that your Book cover stands out, your satisfaction is my goal.

Why choosing this Gig?

Experienced and professional

I ask, Listen and Understand

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Simply put, I care!

What you get:

Creative book cover design

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For any questions or information, please see FAQs or message me

Thanks!

[appareils-futiles]

This I have to do before Saturday (that I've mostly been putting off because of my depression and lack of attention span):

1. Fundamentals of Communication home work + submit by 5:30pm (it's due by Tuesday but since Monday is a holiday, I'd rather it be received Asap...by ASAP I mean no later than Saturday night cause timed stuff takes priority)

2. 3rd Criminal Justice essay (its due tonight by 11:59pm, despite it being given to me on Monday, I haven't even started it yet, I have to do both essays by 5:50pm cause my 1 class today ends at 930 and I do the 30 while live tweeting svu )

3. 2nd Psychology Essay (due tonight by 7:55pm despite classes atarting at 6:30pm, but this one takes priority today. I refuse to fall behind because of my lack of attention span)

4. Finish the notes/highlight for the 1st video watched for Critical Analysis class. (Not graded not really 100% necessary to do, but I already started so it is what it is)

5. Watch 2nd video for Critical Analysis class, take/highlight notes. (Same as above)

6. "Be Specific" questionnaire that probably isn't going to be checked just like the last 3 things I've done for this critical analysis class 🙄 that I fight with this professor about every single week. Twice a week. It isn't due until the 30th but I'll get done before that because 1, time, 2 work and 3 she likes to change dates. So, it is what it is. Gotta get done regardless.

I really need to learn to do my work as soon as I get it especially now that I finally picked up another client. 😩

It's 850am, I've been up since a little before 7am, laying in bed watching a doc about presidential assassinations

Damn attention span. 😒

Update 1: I completely forgot we had an open book test for psych class and although the professor told us it was all multiple choice it turns out that 21 or 45 questions were written and the rest were multiple choice. As a perfectionist with adhd, I like to spell, indent, properly word my responses do from 6: to 9:30, I couldn't finish. 😪 thankfully she gave us a longer time until Saturday right before midnight.

Update 2: the essay was hard since it's hard for me to read via Kindle pdf since there's no search to look up what I needed so I had to figure something else out and eventually, finished it with the best ending sentence: The last line said:" every day we have new scientists, new specialists, new studies and new discoveries. They all differ yet they have one thing in common, they all seek to know more than meets the eye"

Ofcourse my computer freezes and I had to finish via my phone, in the same time I tried to send it via browser kn my phone I have to restart the computer and then it's slow and it literally was marked late because THEY processed it at exactly 11:59 when it was due. 🙄 shout out to my 3 classmates who helped and encouraged me and didn't leave me until they knew it was uploaded. They are the real MVPs! This Is definitely an A+ paper.

Update 3: but now I have a whole new thing to give in before Saturday since I have a new patient.

1. Criminal Justice essay

2. Fundamentals 6Qs

3. Critical Analysis 6Qs

4. Finish quiz for psych.

5. OFcourse aplia.

Aplia I can do Sunday but the other ones are definitely due before Tuesday.

So I may be off for a while. Hopefully.

[hyacinthi-mortem]

IT STILL WONT WORK SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME IM BEGGING YOU HOW DO I FIX THIS @ao3org

[traegorn]

Someone asked me if I'd make my books available as ePubs for non-Kindle ebook reader owners.

Bloody Damn Rite is still in its Kindle Select exclusivity window, but the first novel, The Witch and the Rose, isn't -- so I thought, why not?

You can now buy The Witch and the Rose through my Patreon shop. The price is the same as on Kindle ($3), and that version can be read on pretty much anything.

I may make PDF versions of my old web comics available like I used to too, so people who want the bonus content from the print books can get ahold of them without filling your bookshelf up with my dumb books.

Finally, $10 Tier Patrons will get any books I put up for sale on Patreon included in their membership. Now, besides getting your name in episodes of the podcast... you get some free books you never asked for! Hooray!

That's it. That's what I needed to tell you.

[carlageddon]

Any one else giving WarhammerPlus a go?

So I signed up to WarhammerPlus for a couple of months to see if it’s any good... 

...well that’s a bit of a lie... I signed up for WarhammerPlus in the hopes of winning “all their Paints & Tools” 

So bearing in mind, I still have fond memories of painting back in ‘94. We had about 8 different colours to choose from... a little different to the variety (and quality) we have now.

However, it’s now 14th of February and I’m not feeling the love... because I don’t think I won? I’ve tried tweeting the fine folks at Warhammer but I just get ignored. 

Any way, whilst I have it I’ve been trying to remember to use it as it does seem to have both “Great”, “Could be better” and “Would be good if I had any friends” stuff on there.

 The entire way it’s structured is a bit bad. There are three parts to it from what I can tell, each scattered into their own separate areas.

Warhammer TV. 

 This is their video section of the subscription. They have some excellent cartoons. Hammer & Bolter seems to be great at telling different stories from different factions of the 40K universe.

Some tutorials explaining how to play their games (outside of HeroQuest, I’ve never actually ever played a Games Workshop game. Doesn’t help I have no one to play with). A lot of these look like Games that take an entire day to play.

Then they have other stuff like the Citadel Colour Masterclass, which tries to help you with Painting tutorials... they make it all look so easy.

It would be nice if you could have an APP on the LG store that allows you to watch it direct on the TV, however, you can just stream it to your TV from you App on your phone or tablet I guess.

Warhammer 40,000 “THE APP”.

 This looks like it will be good if you play the 40K. As it’s got all the stats and rules for each army and character. So would be useful to bring each one up on a tablet, rather than rifling through a Codex each and every move. 

(Don’t get me wrong.. I love Warhammer Codex Books... I’ve just started collecting them. I don’t play the game (would like to) I just like the books and the pretty pictures inside) also... I still prefer the 90s Space Wolves heroes.

Warhammer Vault.

This. This is where, I think it really falls on it’s ass.

The idea of having White Dwarf issues, in PDF format, you can view online is a fantastic idea. Not only are we getting the newer ones, but we also have access to the older 2005 and upwards (they really need to do the ones from the mid 90s though). I would quite happy pay the £5 a month for the White Dwarfs and their back catalog. 

HOWEVER. I like most people am not going to sit and read a PDF magazine, on my computer. (OK it’s useful for scrolling through and looking at the pretty pictures). When you run this on a tablet it is slow (if it loads at all). I’ve tried this on multiple brands of tablets and it’s awful. Trying to load an entire magazine as a embedded PDF in a browser. Would the better solution not be for them to have their own PDF viewing app? or integrate with Amazon Kindle? or something better than a browser. 

It makes me so frustrated, do the people that put this together, not go home and test it for themselves? Hire me. I’ll tell you how to run your company I know little about...

It looks like the Paints have gone through several releases since I used them in the mid 90s. Also yes. I am a fan of Space Wolves..

Other than Warhammer-Vault rarely works very well on a tablet. It is a brilliant idea. I hope they do manage to sort their own PDF reader App out - at the very least, an offline mode. 

Oh yeah - there was one more thing. If you subscribe for a year, you get the choice of a ‘free’ miniature : 

Currently you can get Azrakh the Annihilator for Warhammer 40K or Mobyllorr Darkfang for Warhammer Fantasy Warhammer Age of Sigmar. But you have to wait a full year (and pay the £60) before you’ll see it. By then I’m hoping my painting will of improved enough to risk putting brush to figure. That’s another thing... at some point between the mid-90s and 2022, it stopped being Warhammer Fantasy, and is now called “Age of Sigmar”. Now back in my day. We didn’t call the store Warhammer, we called it Games Workshop, and a pound coin was called a golden queen. There were only 4 days in a week, back then we didn’t call them a day, we called them a quarter moon turn...

..end of ramblings...

[theloveinc]

hi!!! i have a kindle paperwhite that i love, the newest gen (the option without the ads and 32gb because i love books and wanted lots of storage space). i highly recommend it!!! it’s backlit, so you can read in the dark, and you can adjust the brightness and warmth of the screen, as well as the color of (regular) books between white, black, and a sepia/tan tone. you can also change font size, style, and boldness, as well as page orientation between upright and horizontal. i have a fun little flap cover case for mine, and a screen protector, but i’m sure you can get fancier/more protective cases. i like having my simple flap cover :) you can go onto the internet but it’s kinda ehh, but if you want to read fics from ao3 you can download them and port them onto your kindle using something like calibre, which is a totally free and open source software to take downloaded files, like pdfs or .mobis, and convert them or send them to your kindle/e-reader from a laptop or computer! ao3 supports downloading fics in house, i have several downloaded onto my kindle, and if you read fics from other websites (like fanfiction.net), there are websites that can help you download fics from those sites too, and you can use calibre to transfer them to your kindle :) and then of course you have access to the entire amazon books sale page (on the kindle! you can buy books on your kindle), and if you want to you can get kindle unlimited, which i have because i like reading kitschy romance novels lol mine also has a super long battery life, and i highly recommend spending to get the kindle dock as well, i use it to hold my kindle up while i read in bed and knit, and it connects to a cord to charge it for you :) all-in-all, i honestly really like my kindle paperwhite, but i also had a pretty large kindle library before i got it, so that’s why i got a kindle specifically. i also didn’t want anything that i could put apps on so i could read without getting distracted like i sometimes do on my phone, so the fact that it’s pretty simple in what all it can do is perfect for me :) (and you CAN get comics/manga on it, i just don’t read mine on it, and it’s stuck in b/w/ even on colored pages i think)

(rest of post under cut due to length!!)

thank you sm for the breakdown of yours! sounds like something really fun to have, with all it's uses and the ability to customize it! i remember way back when in like... 5th-6th grade, my friend had a kindle too and her google(-equivalent?) app didn't work very well either....... i see not much has changed lolol (maybe for the best?).

i agree with you, though. i'd definitely get distracted with other apps, so it's almost better not to have them? at the same time tho, i just feel like... paying for a device like that... and then not having the option to have other entertainment would piss me off LOL. esp cuz switching back between phone and kindle at night seems... a bit pointless (why i want to read more in general, to get off my phone + probs why my mom keeps telling me to just use the kindle app but... ehhhh). probably why it's so cheap tho.

as for downloading fics... i'm glad to know it's an option at the very least!!honestly, truly what sounds the best to me (other than the reading itself) is the dock thing, as i'd love to read and crochet, too🥺

but this was really helpful, as i def think it's something i should think about saving up for (and a better quality one too, at least for space and lack of ads bc... yeah u right). not to repeat myself for the 40th time but.. i've got some time to consider it before i really need to put it on the list.

thank you so much for your help tho! it sounds really beneficial and like it was a great gift for you❤️❤️❤️

[booksread121]

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 I knew I wanted her the first time I saw her. Only problem? She can?t be my mate.I?m a son of a traitor and former Alpha and I know it?s the legacy people see.But I must be the Alpha of my Pack and protect them from the new threat to our world: Vampires.Valac and the others are still in the shadows, and we must find their lairs before we lose more than we already have.Only every time the enemy attacks, Skye puts herself in jeopardy. I?m the dominant wolf, but she?s the one with the most to lose.She?s the Pack princess. The daughter of legends.And I know she?s not my mate.But I want her. I need her. And now I must convince my wolf. Or break the most sacred rules of the moon goddess.Again. .

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[rauhauser]

Facets of Reality

The country has changed a lot since I first got involved in a sense-making operation almost fourteen years ago. I publicly mentioned “retirement” in late 2020, and was thinking with Biden’s election I’d wind up operations and go do something with money in it. The target date was the anniversary of that first project, roughly St. Patrick’s day of 2021. As you may recall, a few things have happened since then.

Besides the lack of funding on the left for the sort of work I do another strong motivator was the steady encroachment of algorithms into human affairs. I deleted my Facebook account a decade ago, I relentlessly identify and block the various consumer behavior profiling services, and I otherwise resist tracking. Even so, when I sit down to read with my Kindle the lock screen will have an ad for a product related to whatever my most recent searches have been. China has been cramming every bit of text they can find into AI projects, they’ve got swarms of socks mapping LinkedIn, and on Twitter I’ve had a couple encounters with things that must have been algorithm driven faux humans.

I recently opened @AmericanHacker back up to expanding its audience and after just a week or so of “follow back” I don’t think it’s a good idea. The quality of information I see from that facet plunged, while emotional hot buttons skyrocketed. That account is corralled in a virtual machine, it’s not on very often, but the fact that it exists at all kinda gets on my nerves.

Being aware of the problem, my situational awareness methods have evolved. I have a sort of “cube” construct I’m using, with each of six facets providing views into the ever shifting mass of causes and conditions we refer to as objective reality. My goals in this are a high signal to noise ratio, a linear flow of time, and the ability to quickly “rotate” the cube to whichever perspective I need in the moment.

Facets I am using are ...

Twitter is just nasty. I have a fourteen year old account that has no followers and no friends. The only thing it does is host a Tweetdeck setup. I have decks for various topics, they contain searches for clusters of names, and I only look at English results from verified accounts. I don’t see trends and they don’t get to insert random stuff into what I see.

Inoreader gives me a Tweetdeck like view into RSS feeds. It’s a flexible, programmable system, and I don’t use it to anywhere near its potential. But it puts everything I want to see in one place without any advertising or other distractions allowed.

Open Semantic Search is a search engine that you control. I use their virtual machine appliance, creating a VirtualBox Linked Clone for each area. There are a lot of document caches out there – 6300 pages for the Mueller Report and supporting FBI FD-302s, 1900+ pages for Zoe Lofgren’s Congressional Capitol Siege social media report, and the Trump campaign’s income/expense report was released as a single ginormous 211,825 page PDF.

Visualization is an absolute must, there’s just too much of everything no matter where you look, we’re drowning in data. So I have Maltego as my go-to link analysis tool, and after ten years of using the commercial version there are 1,700 graphs in my Maltego instance of OSS. MAGA world has been such a shitstorm I started keeping a graph on it two years ago. Today that graph has almost a thousand URLs in it and 2,808 names, which makes it unwieldly on a twelve core Xeon. I’ve taken to pulling out pieces of it to update, saving them as date stamped files, and then letting OSS handle the complexity of finding things.

Books have come fast and thick thanks to the MAGA corruption wave. I was hobbled by Lyme and post-Lyme troubles since 2007, but that started to improve at the start of 2019, and I got my brain back in early May of 2022, just in time for things to go completely out of control. I’ve already published a recommended reading list, but Denver Riggleman’s The Breach is NOT on it. That’s not a statement on the books quality, it’s that it’s a new arrival and for me it’s a source of narrative for all the data I hold. I read just a little bit, then set it aside, because when I do read it I’ll have a notebook close at hand, so I can compare his findings to mine.

The final facet are the various chat rooms that I frequent. I used to spend a lot of time with grassroots groups but that’s been steadily declining since 2020. It’s better for me to focus on data/process, and leave the mingling to those who are able to do so without causing a stir.