#and theres a lot of reasons that can block you from achieving things Right Now | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kenmasgameboy · 4 years

Text

【ｒｅａｃｈｉｎｇ】

an oikawa x seijoh president!reader

oikawa toru has so many girls falling at his feet, but it wasn’t always like this. when y/n met him there was no one yet to inflate his ego, when he was pure to himself, the person he is when it isn’t performative. she fell in love. after forcing a rejection from him, where he says he never saw her as a girl, she’s determined to become the absolute perfect girl for every one except him.

profiles: [ student council ] [ on the block ]

masterlist

listen to the mixtape while you read

↬ entry #1: age 6 ➺ chapter 1: age 18 ➺ next

age 18:

𝕚. different now

MAKE SURE TO READ THE WRITTEN PORTION BELOW THE CUT

Your hands felt like they were surely going to fall off at any moment. You never really did get used to being in front of big crowds like this. Even last year when you had to give your first speech as a presidential candidate to the school you wanted to burst into flames. Your hands always did this thing when you were nervous, ever since you were little they’d become so gross and clammy. You hated that about yourself. What a weak give away.

The principal was just beginning the ceremony, and you waited outside in the hallway until it was closer to your turn to speak, pacing back and forth you stared out the window. The mid day yellow light peaking through the large trees in front of Seijoh’s campus. You really loved these trees, they would always shake and rustle in new ways everyday, reminding you of ways that you could stand your ground but continue to change in your own way. Some seasons shedding yourself completely bare and growing a new color, or a new branch, breaking them off as you went.

Today, even the trees that normally would be there to offer you a quiet calmness didn’t help you today. Your body still succumbing to its stage fright. This was your first appearance as Aoba Johsai School President to your student body that you represented, you needed a perfect impression. You needed to be perfect. The more you thought about it the jitters in your hands only increased, you tried to loosen the tightness, shaking them from your wrist downwards in hopes they would just fall off. You always did this before volleyball games and it never failed you. You only stopped your nasty habit when you heard rapid footsteps coming in your direction.

“Hey, there you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” Sora’s voice carried down the hallway. Your vice president had been looking for you. His chest heaved in breaths to try to regulate his body after running around.

“Sorry. I’ll be inside in a second, I just—” You said, pulling your hands behind your back to hide them. But it was too late.

“Are you nervous? Why? Everyone already loves you it’s not like they’ll change their minds now.” Sora said it lightheartedly, but there was a pressure that sat on your shoulders when he said it. An extra weight of expectation.

“Don’t say that.” You shrugged off the compliment, thinking about one face in particular. You groaned at the way he still had an effect on you. You thought of Toru’s eyes, “Not everyone.”

“Maybe not. You’re right, I can’t speak for everyone.” Sora smiled softly, “But as your Vice, I can speak for you. And I know you’ll be perfectly fine up there. I have full confidence. If you start stuttering, just take a second and keep going. We practiced this morning, right?”

“Right.” You nodded, your throat suddenly becoming overwhelmingly dry. “I know, I just have a lot on my plate today, there’s too much I’m not looking forward to.”

“Then let’s check one thing off, right? Let’s go out there.” Sora said, he grabbed your hand in his tugging you along. You weren’t ready, he wasn’t listening to you yet. But maybe he was right, you did need to be out there sooner than later. Still, you needed a few moments to collect yourself, to dampen your hands, something.

You couldn’t say anything, You became paralyzed in place as you looked at the back of Sora’s head. Your legs felt numb as they carried you in stride behind him down the hallway. His hand holding yours, it reminded you of someone again. Seeing him again this morning in class must’ve resurged these memories you pushed away as nothing. This was different, this wasn’t him. The back of Sora’s head was shiny and straight. His blond hair didn’t bounce, and he didn’t look back to smile at you. There was a sinking feeling in your stomach, it didn’t feel like nerves or anything like that. It felt like a settlement.

Your eyes ended up drifting off to the right, only slightly enough to catch the eyes that were more familiar than you remembered. His hair looking darker than when you were young, but it shined all the same. He still shined, even when he wasn’t smiling at you. Your eyes followed each other. The moment slowing down to make your first dose of eye contact in 2 years a dangerous and addictive cocktail.

Your hands were still sweaty, still nervous and shaking. It broke away from the confines of Sora’s palm. You need to grip them tighter when she’s nervous. The boy who stood innocently by the restroom found himself offering silent advice in his head. Toru couldn’t take his eyes away from the light that poured between the gap of You and Sora’s palms. It’s like he saw an opening, illuminating his opportunity and his body.

For the first time in ages, he felt the nostalgic need to grab those familiar sweaty palms. For a second he thought you’d stay with him, stay back and ask what he was doing in the hallway by the boys bathroom and not by your side? Why did he waste so much time? Did he think you were more beautiful today than every day he’s seen you before? He needed you to ask him those questions.

His daydream was over in a second, once your face contorted from the hopeful surprise of someone who used to calm you into a disappointed grimace of remembering the hurt he had caused you that erased everything from before. You kept jogging behind Sora, no words were exchanged. You didn’t need to say anything to Toru, he heard you loud and clear.

“I hope you regret it. I hope you regret everything. I’ll never trust you like that again, not really.”

To him, this was a challenge worthy of taking. The time to change it all was now.

***

【ｆｕｎ　ｆａｃｔｓ】

➺ Michi was late to the student arrival because she was slipping a love letter in Oikawa’s shoe locker. He didn’t even see it that day.

➺ Ito has really never spoken to y/n except she held the door open for him one day, he took that as she’s in love with him and too scared to tell him.

➺ Ito approached Matsukawa, Hanamaki, Iwaizumi, and Oikawa when all four were together. It was actually Oikawa who told Ito he had no chance in hell with y/n. the exact words he used was “she’s not just going to fall in love with someone who’s never cared enough to get to know her first before saying something like that. theres no way in hell you’d have a chance with a girl like her.”

➺ the other three just kind of stood there agreeing but also like “.__, tough talk coming from you, Oikawa”

➺ y/n has been starting libero since her first year, despite debating dropping volleyball in high school she decided this would look great to universities that she was involved with more than just student council. she still was invited to girls Japan youth camp for her achievements as an athlete. regardless, she still knew her real reasons were that it was the last piece of something he gave her.

➺ unlike oikawa, y/n hasn’t even thought about dating anyone in high school. she’s been single her whole life despite getting a fair amount of confessions in her time.

➺ y/n also follows oikawa on a fake account.

taglist: @chibishae34 @bby-bokuto @shittykawaa @1-800-schmacked @artsamber @berriesii @bbyazu @roseestuosity @gaytoasterstrudels @mirdy47707 @trippy-kitty @iwanttogotopluto @hvneymun @a-listaire @princessmidas @glyxiebear @akaashiwife @anejuuuuoy @kiyoojima @deimmortales99 @unstableye @sugawarabby @haikyuufairy @ashaite @bettys-other-shoe @defchamseoul @honeymoneyy @animatedrapture @alexthe80swhore @nellieleverlin @forhyunryu @thosenerdy3amthings @mariachiii @dishonestkilla

reply with a comment or send an ask to be aded to the taglist!! if your name is crossed off it’s because i couldn’t tag you, let me know if you’ve changed your username!

a/n: wOW what a doOZY of a long first chapter, they all won’t be this long but i felt like i had a lot to set up. Let me know what you guys thought!!! i hope this guys got you a bit more hyped for this story! more to come!

151 notes · View notes

4bsynthe4ngel · 3 years

Text

Messages for the Signs this Weekend ! (2/5/21 - 2/7/21)

Applies to all major placements!

Aries:

KEY WORDS: Faith, Patience, Peace, Rest, Reflect

Aries, let go of the need to control everything! Relax! Have faith in your guides! They’re basically screaming that you need to let go of the need to know all the answers and start going with the flow more. You seem hyper-fixated on a goal when in all reality there’s something much better for you out there that you aren’t giving yourself the time to see. Stop overworking yourself, you are allowed to rest. I’m hearing that a lot of you need to take a walk to ground yourself. Pay attention to nature and all of the beautiful things around you, please stop getting so caught up in life!

Taurus:

KEY WORDS: Dreams, Boundaries, Independence, Pleasure, Achievement, Trust, Passion

Wow taurus, there’s a lot to go over here! First of all, theres a huge emphasis on dreams here. You guys need to pay a lot more attention to your dreams, your guides are trying to tell you something! I’m seeing that you guys might be a little confused on where you’re supposed to be going in life. Like you spent so much time doing what others wanted you to do and now you’re not quite sure what you actually want anymore. Think back to what you loved as a child, this will give you a hint on where you should be going. You probably still love all of the little things you loved as a child. Resurrect those passions, it’ll be so relieving. Listen, and don’t act like you didn’t just read this. STOP LETTING THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU CONTROL WHAT YOU DO. ASSERT YOUR BOUNDARIES. TRUST YOURSELF AND YOUR OWN DECISIONS. YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT PATH.

Gemini:

KEY WORDS: Wait, Listening, Self-Love, Support, Connection, Playfulness

Geminis, spend some time with your family this weekend, or if your family sucks, your friends. If you have a younger sibling, a friend with a younger sibling, your own child, or just a young child around you, spend some time with them. There’s a lot we can learn from children! Nourish your inner child by letting loose and spending some time around kids! Remember that sense of joy that you’ve forgotten. Also, relax! Take care of your body by giving it a break. Meditate! It seems like a lot of you are avoiding inner child work. That’s your focus this weekend. Nourish your inner child.

Cancer:

KEY WORDS: Wait, Tenderness, Awareness, Friendship, Power, Self-Love, Clearing

Alright cancers, your act of self care this week is cleaning. Some of you seem a little stuck in the past and the best way I’m seeing to fix that right now is to clean! Clear out your closet, get rid of all the things you don’t wear, don’t like, don’t want, etc. Make your bed, run yourself a nice bath, relax, think about all the things you appreciate about yourself, and then jump into those fresh bedsheets in your favorite oversized tshirt and let yourself be comfortable. Oh, and call a friend! (or text them or something it doesn’t really matter just stop isolating yourself so much!) Quarantining is one thing, and I know it feels nice to be alone, but PLEASE stop isolating yourself so much, hang out with a friend, they miss you (and you miss them a lot more than you realize). Plus, it’ll get you out of your head and in the present moment. You can only sit around and think about the past so much, cancer.

Virgo:

KEY WORDS: Peace, Patience, Rejuvenation, Power, Self-Love

Listen virgo, I know y’all are some control freaks, but your guides are getting tired of your shit, and so are you. PLEASE get some rest in this weekend. You are powerful, but you don’t have to spend every waking moment trying to prove that to yourself. Slow down, stop stressing yourself, your body is NOT appreciating it. It seems like a lot of you haven’t been sleeping very well because you won’t stop STRESSING YOURSELVES. Just like aries, you don’t need to have all the answers right now, you don’t always need to know everything. Your guides have your back, I promise, stop worrying. Your act of self care this weekend is getting some good fucking sleep.

Leo:

KEY WORDS: Faith, Power, Rejuvenation, Self-Love, Time, Listening

Alright leos, y’all better start listening to your intuition RIGHT NEOW!! Y’all are so powerful but you doubt yourselves SO MUCH. STOP IT! You need to learn the difference between intuition and paranoia but you’ll never learn if you never listen to yourself to figure out the difference! Also, drink some fucking water. please. Dehydrated mfs. For some reason I’m seeing a lot of you taking a fully clothed shower in the dark, but not because you don’t like yourselves or anything, just because it sounds relieving, and omg it will be. I’m feeling a LOT of tension release from that. Also, y’all need to fix your sleep schedules. “Humans literally spend a third of our lives asleep, that’s a waste of time” is not a valid point. stop it. sleep. Your body is done with your shit.

Libra:

KEY WORDS: Playfulness, Pleasure, Creativity, Relaxation, Independence, Reflect, Risk

Libras, just like gemini, y’all should spend some time with children this weekend. I’m definitely seeing finger-painting or drawing with sidewalk chalk. Remember the pleasures of the little things, let yourself feel that joy. Y’all have the power to move mountains, but you’re caught up in proving that to yourself. Not everything is a mountain, and not everything has to be. Decide where to direct your energy, because putting your energy into making molehills into mountains is getting really exhausting. Give yourselves some time to chill the fuck out. You don’t need to be doing something all the time. I’m getting a lot of capricorn “what am I if I’m not productive?” energy, stop it. Don’t let the capitalist brain get to you. If you really can’t stand doing “nothing”, do some art. It doesn’t have to be good, just let that stress out on a canvas, or a sidewalk, it’ll feel great, trust me.

Scorpio:

KEY WORDS: Rest, Peace, Patience, Revelation

Scorpio, y’all need to learn to be patient. There’s something amazing coming to you if you just learn to wait for it instead of chasing the first offer you see. I’m not sure what else to say actually, this is a super clear message. Y’all just need to wait and stop chasing what you think you want so hard. Rest and re-evaluate. The right path will reveal itself when you find it in you to release this one. It’s okay to not know where youre going, you’ll figure it out, I promise. Stop stressing, scorpios.

Sagittarius:

KEY WORDS: Connection, Support, Priorities

Oooohh, y’all are gonna be spending some time with a special someone this weekend, or if you’re single, some friends! I’m seeing some deep conversations going on and an opportunity to offer your support and advice to someone. This will feel relieving. You might’ve forgotten how nice it can feel to help others with how much you’ve been focusing on yourselves lately. Everyone is seeing the glow-up, I promise, but now is the time to share that growth with others! You also might be evaluating who is actually worth your energy this weekend. You might receive a lot of offers. You know in your heart which ones are worth your time. You won’t make the wrong decision, sag.

Capricorn:

KEY WORDS: Self-Respect, Friendship, Magnificence, Wait, Wisdom

I’m seeing some of you doubting your intuition recently, or generally feeling a little blocked. Learn to trust yourself, and understand your self-worth, y’all, stop getting so down on yourselves. You are amazing, unique, and powerful, without ever having to prove it to yourself (or anyone else for that matter). Spending some time with friends will help you realize this. Call up a friend this weekend and do something random. Don’t plan anything out, just meet up and do whatever feels right. Y’all really need to let go of your need for control, and this is your first exercise in it.

Aquarius:

KEY WORDS: Dance, Self-Respect, Wisdom, Risk, Guidance

Holy fuck, Aquas. Y’all are really being called to make some moves this weekend. I see a lot of you have been thinking of trying to monetize a talent or just otherwise show it to the world, do it!!!! This is your sign, DO THE THING! You know what’s right, you know exactly what you’re supposed to do. You don’t have to know how it’ll turn out, take that risk! Your guides are screaming at you to! They have your back! If you don’t believe me, ask them!! Listen, this is the most amazing reading, it’s so beautiful, PLEASE make whatever move you’ve been thinking of making, it WILL work out. “Take a Risk - You have the power within to move mountains” “Ask for guidance - The Divine will meet your every need” “Step into the light - Share your gifts and talents with the world”. I cannot make this any clearer, AQUAS, D O T H E T H I N G ! R I G H T N E O W !!!!!

Pisces:

KEY WORDS: Pleasure, Tenderness, Dance, Rest

Alright, like aquarius, y’all pisces placements have something you’ve been wanting to monetize, but unlike aquarius, it seems like y’all have been trying pretty hard to monetize it and haven’t spent much time just enjoying it. Whatever you love, just do it because you love it for a while. Stop thinking so hard about it, just relax and enjoy the things you enjoy this weekend. Be nice to yourself, enjoy how far you’ve come in life without constantly pushing yourself further. Think about how far you’ve come. If you’re a musician, slow down learning so many new things and look back on what you know, play some old songs to refresh your memory. If you’re an artist, look back on your old work, do something you used to do as a kid, like fingerpainting or sidewalk chalk drawings. This is how you guys will nourish your inner child this weekend (which is MUCH needed). Appreciate how far you’ve come and allow yourself to relax, you’re doing fine.

10 notes · View notes

argumentl · 3 years

Text

The Freedom of Expression Ep 9 - Housewives living in Yamagata prefecture referred to prosecutors for insulting Kawasaki Nozomi.

K: Hi, This is Dir en grey's Kaoru, getting started with another episode of The Freedom of Expression. Joe san,Tasai san, welcome.

J, T: Pleased to be here.

K: Ok, so today's theme, Joe?

J: Yes, lets take a look at this news. 'Insult to Kawasaki Nozomi. "She gives me the creeps". Housewives in Yamagata prefecture referred to prosecutors....

A 39 year old woman from Yamagata and a 45 year old female medical worker from Osaka are being referred to Tokyo area prosecutors by Harajuku police station. According to staff at Harajuku police station, the pair are suspected of exchanging insults like "She gives me the creeps" about Kawasaki on an online public parenting platform between the 8th and 9th of April. They both admit to the charge.'

Just from reading this, being referred to prosecutors for saying 'she gives me the creeps' is a bit..

T: Well, yeh, but if you look in more detail, over three years they actually wrote on this parenting forum stuff like, 'She should miscarry' or ' 'she's creepy', also 'she's insolent', 'lets set fire to her house', *1, quite extreme things.

J: So we don't actually know thier reason for writing this stuff do we?

T: They wanted to send a message to Kawasaki Nozomi's husband's blog, but they were blocked, or unable to do so for some reason, im not sure. This made them angry and they directed thier rage towards his wife.

J: They probably shouldn't target his wife, and getting that upset because they couldn't send a message..I don't really know.

K: Its not very clever, right?

J: Yeah, its really not.

T: Also, 'defamation', I havn't heard this in a while.

J: Yeh, well Kawasaki san probably felt some damage to her honour, and in reality, if they come near her house, its coming close to interference in her business. The police probably thought this kind of 'defamation' was grounds for referrering the case to prosecutors. Another possibility is that Kawasaki san hired a lawyer, who may have said they same thing....So, this happened on an online forum? I think we talked about this happening with someone else before, but how far can slandering be forgiven? I mean, in this case its being reffered to prosecutors, so, well, when does it become a crime? I think this is a really difficult point. This kind of thing hasn't been made clear in detail, but it may have similar requisites as harassment. But like, how far do you have to go for it to be sexual harassment?, how far to..???*2. This type of thing isn't specified in criminal law. I think this is a problem that will have different interpretations, that will change depending on the information. So, Kaoru, as an artist with your name and face in the public eye, you must get lots of supportive messages. But at the same time, you probably also get some not so supportive messages. How far can you tolerate those? Of course, even one nasty thing can hurt, but what what would you consider worth talking to the police about, for example?

K: Well, I havn't had anything as bad as this, but...???*3 seems creepy to me.

J, T: For sure

J: And in this case, Kawasaki san hasn't even done anything! She's just in the wrong place. Right from the start its like, 'Why me?!'

K: Yeh, cause she's pregnant isn't she?..with that..its scary isn't it?

J, T: It is.

T: So, Kawasaki san is a former AKB 48 member, and after she quit, she started up her own company and was quite successful, she's been categorized as a winner, there might be people who are jealous of her. But to this extent..?

K: Well, they wrote it thinking that they wouldn't be exposed, didn't they?

T: Do people get exposed?

K, J: They do.

J: But why would they intentionally write this on a public forum? Wouldn't you normally spout your jealousy at a bar or something, after a few drinks?

K: But this is the same as that.

J: They simply write it?

K: I think so.

J: Like a kind of public execution?

K: No, I don't think they are thinking that much about it.

T: I think people need to be more aware of how scary SNS can be.

K: People are writing stuff with no thought, so i also think its ok to ignore it really. Its a person writing wierd stuff off the cuff, its all over...I mean, recently.???? There are tonnes of people writing stuff without thinking. And then people see all these comments just like that...writing just like that, and seeing just like that. Strangely, you need to be able to ...???, and you need to be able to brush it off . You'll still always encounter SNS or online info, thats how I feel about it *4.

J: I see.

T: There have been sucides in Korea, famous people have committed suicide, because they got affected by what people wrote online. So it happens in other countries too.

K: Well, it does affect you, the first time you see it.

J: Well, yes. When I do radio I get called all kinds of names *the others laugh*, recently, ive gotten, '????', to one of my shows. And these people get carried away, right, so it just increases more. They just come out with insult after insult*5, like 'are you still at it?!' ...well, i think, at least they are listening, so im kind of thankful.

K: Yeah, yeah.

J: Like, im just always talking, it could be kinda annoying, so if theres someone out there listening, im grateful. *T laughing*

T: Doesn't it bother you, Joe?

J: Not usually, no. But sometimes they hit in a sensitive spot, right? *K, T laugh*

J: It shouldn't be a big deal ...but....right? Some people will even cry on the train home. Even though it hasn't been a big deal until now, some people will cry about it. Especially if im also having a tough time with work or personal life, it stings.

K: Well, you are only human.

J: Right.

Kami: It happens to me too.

J: Oh, Kami's here.

Kami: Yeah, that happens to me.

T: You're not bothered by that though are you?

J: Yeah, you're a god.

Kami: Well, they say im no big deal, unreliable, or useless or something like that, loads of things are said about me...'you cheater ' and such.

T: *laughs*

J: You cheater?

K: Cheater..? What did he do?

J: Yeah!

K: No, I havn't done anything! I havn't done anything. Maybe its because, they'll give thier shrine donation but I don't do anything in return.

J: Oh, that more like a case of money trasfer fraud in the end?

Kami: Well, yeah.

T: Are you doing well at your part time job Kami?

Kami: Yeah, im doing well.

J: Are you?

Kami: Yeah, I am, i am.

T: A pseudo account...

K: He's writing on one, right?

Kami: No, if stuff happens to my displeasure, I'll give out bad luck..as a fortune.

K: Did you say, 'I'll give out..' *laughs*

J: Kami, you're scary.

T: He is.

Kami: The people who insult me will go home with bad luck.

J: But there must be people all over the world saying stuff about you..

Kami: Yes, yes, yes.

J: It must be tough to search online for yourself?

Kami: Yes, that is tough.

J: Right?

K: He said once before that he searches for himself online, didn't he?

J: He did..I wonder how many hits you get per day with the god hashtag?

Kami: There are people saying this god is good, or that god is good, or there is only one god, or stuff like that. I don't even know which one they mean.

K: But aren't there many gods, but one in charge, right?

Kami: Who's in charge..im not sure.

*everyone laughs*

J: He doesn't even know?! Maybe you're a cheater because you're not even real?!

Kami: Some people say that about me.

J: Ok, prove to us now that you're real. At least, show us something that you've achieved. If not...if i mention it now, we've never seen you in person since the start, you just came down from the sky, and we just thought you were a god.

K: He just came all of a sudden, right?

J: Right! We've don't even have any proof that you're a god. We've had no choice but to believe you.

Kami: I'll refer it to prosecutors.

J: Eh? What do you mean?

T: Scary!

Kami: As defamation.

*laughing*

J: Oh, if we say stuff about you?

Kami: Yes, yes, its defamation. Bad luck for Joe.

J: Eh? Really? ...by the way, how for would you tolerate people badmouthing you, Kami?

Kami: Badmouthing?

J: Are there any insults where you think, 'This is really awful!'?

Kami: No, the things that are said about me are, im no big deal, that im unreliable, not in existence, or useless. That type of thing..'he's a cheater' and such.

J: I see.

T: Now that you mention it, thats sometimes said about Tokyo Sports too.

J: Yeahh

T: 'Go under'.

Kami: Yeh, its like Tokyo Sports.

J: Do people really say that to you? But you said before, right? Apart from the date, everthing is false. *everyone laughing*. Thats amazing, you can sell papers and make money like that? Is Tokyo Sports originally just like fake news?

T: Well, people all over the world like a good story don't they?

J: I see. Well, it excells in the field of sports newspapers. Tokyo Sports has tonnes of fans, doesn't it?

T: Yeah

K: Tokyo Sports is like, the different one.

J: Yes, its different.

T: Well, im grateful..

J: Really!

T: On the other hand, we aren't respected. The level of respect we get is really low. *the others laugh* But I want to keep eating, so I'll recommend it.

J: Ah, ok. Are you hiring..at Tokyo Sports?

T: No, not really.

J: You're not?

Kami: A normal newspaper puts articles out, right?

T: Yeah.

Kami: But Tokyo Sports is creative.

J: Ahh, yes. They are stories, right?

Kami: Very much like a god.

J: Tokyo Sports like a god?!

T: Will you come and work for us, Kami?..hourly rate 25% bonus.

J: Ohh, 1250yen!

K: What will you make him do?!

Kami: Hmm, hmmm.

T: He could start with cleaning the toilets.

Kami: A night shift would be more money. *laughs*

J: Kami, how about cleaning Tokyo Sports' toilets?

Kami: It would be an outrageous guy who makes a god clean the toilets.

J: No, that would be the real Toilet God*6.

K: ?!...You were aiming with that!

J: Err, yeh...kinda.

*everyone laughing*

K: It seemed on purpose

J: No, no, it just came to me. I thought it would be too good.

T: You sounded serious.

J:I've been exposed...I took a deep breath before I said it. My shoulders moved.

K: His face looks so camp now....Ok, well, lets finish up here. Err, everyone, please subscribe to this...show?

J: This channel.

K: Please subscribe to this channel..See you next time.

*1 Im not massively good at Japanese slurs.

*2,3 Couldn't catch these bits.

*4 He spoke so fast it all kind blurred onto one, difficult to understand.

*5 He's running off a list of slurs which his listener sent to him. Im not advanced enough in Japanese slurring to grasp each individual one.

*6 There is a toilet god in Japanese folklore, have a google :)

#dir en grey #the freedom of expression #tfoe #薫 #kaoru

18 notes · View notes

genius11rare · 4 years

Text

Figured id try this. AH Chit chat livestream notes / QnA 7-10-20

because i'm weird i like “documenting” videos and (in this case) Live Streams. figured why keep this to myself so here. maybe one day ill just post a google docs link for a viewing copy but idk. So heres what i got for today seeing as the chitchat part will likely be cut off for the “real” video i may as well memorialize it. not perfect and may be kinda nonsensical but its what i could come up with.

Matt has a window…. With a balcony blocking above , pointless window. Red Web (trevors podcast) “where he gets in over his head on the internet” “think if i just show them the episode of Technical Difficulties where i made garden lights into solar chargers i can get that tax kickback?” , Jacks neighbor with the tesla solar roof , having to train people to know how to install it . Ryan: “what are the odds he cant look outside at any given hour of the day and see atleast one human with a big piece of paper scratching their head” Elon Musk Starlink satellites for internet worldwide, Ryan “not saying that's _clearly_ a supervillain plot but if it was it wouldnt surprise me” , Ubisoft Far Cry teaser… oh its live action movie teaser clip- oh shit that's rendered!!! , teaser pick of a young Vaas with scars…. Ryan “Did he get them in the womb!?!?!? Wanna know how i got these scars? Born with them don't know…” “What is your fave type of cake?” Ryan: Chocolate (Lava)… don't put a sprinkle on it OR ILL SLAY YOU Jack: I mean is birthday a type of cake… Funfettis great Jeremy: both are stereotypical , Boston Creme cakes and Rum Cakes. Matt: Yellow cake with fudge frosting. “Pets and significant others are safe , what item do you grab in a house fire” Jack: Animation cel of the Dino DNA scene in Jurrassic Park (think i got it) Ryan: i mean my life looks alot like this corner , if i could burn this shit down to start with a new empty house i might even be happy. (chat Ryan your insurance is listening) Jeremy: don't have much i really care about , just “well that sucks it burnt up” . Matt: first ever smash trophy i won , only one i still have. Chat answers “Photo albums , Ryans DeadPool Suit” “what games hope to be announced on microsoft stream?” Matt : Fable 4 (Ryan ”surprised theyd try to bring it back past the press that is peter molyneu” Matt ” well now nothing holding them back , not those trees!”) Jack: not so much games but LockHeart the mini streaming Xbox. (Ryan: all those types of things have failed idk why they think - well they also made mixer and that went tits up so sure why not) Jeremy: microsoft doesnt really blow me away , arent really anything that im like “i HOPE they announce a sequel” Matt: know this isnt the right crowd but Banjo Kazzoie? Just added in smash , Crash Bandicoots got a new game it makes sense nows the time… i mean the time was already before this but fuck it do it anyway. Steffie says we are at almost 10 mil views on Achievement Knievel (9.95 mil) Ryan “which one was that” (Jack and Jeremy) “that's Im Still In The Air” Ryan “oooohhh… now i know why i blocked it out… thought we titled it like “the greatest stunt ever” or atleast that's what we called it while making it” “rather fight 100 duck sized ChilledChaos (yey my boy chilled!) or 1 ChilledChaos sized duck?” Ryan “feel like the duck cuz atleast it still doesnt have thumbs” - Jeremy “or teeth , what is it gonna do it can bill and flipper you” Matt “i mean a bunch of tiny Chilleds can work together to kill you” Jeremy “right they will figure something out” Ryan “tiny chilled more dangerous he can infiltrate spaces i wouldnt expect to find him” “tv show / movie you could watch again for the first time what would it be?” Jack: Breaking bad and Endgame … but only if its with a crowd who is ALSO seeing it for the first time. Matt : The Office Ryan: Full Metal Alchemist (oh anime time) , everyone talks about Brotherhood but i really liked the original. Matt: Brotherhoods a bit better but original is still good on its own (paraphrased). Ryan : had that twist at the end of “dafuq did this show just go?” made a movie based off it… skippable though. Jeremy: Futurama , *or erase all my knowledge of Whose Line* “Fave piece of Merch put out?” Jeremy: Geoff tanktop with the tribal skull. Ryan: *puts on classic gray achievement hunter hat* Jack: Extralife Posters if those count , like the Xmen AH one behind Ryan that Jon (Risinger i assume) and Pat (IDFK) made. Matt: Tiki Mugs. Jeremy “do you use those , make pina coladas?” Matt “often! When i get caught in the rain (GDI Matt) “ Chat alot saying FrontBack , one said Jacks Varsity Jacket. “Trapped in quarantine with a fictional character , who?” Jack: Macgyver maybe idk (Ryan: How about Dr Manhattan he could just fix it) yeah like Q from star trek. Matt: GlaDOS but in potato form. Jeremy “theres a lot of anime girls id be ok being stuck with but idk their name” (i love jeremy) a Matt: you want Lust from Full Metal Alchemist - Jeremy: That sounds great , (Ryan *Nods*) i can picture that i like it or if we keeping the Futurama train then Bender… think wed have A LOT of fun , and he wouldnt get me the virus! Ryan: no he would , hed deliberately try to get you sick. Jeremy: hed bring people in “what occupation / person where you most surprised to find out was an AH fan?” Jack: Fun story im looking to learn how to Sauder , someone messaged me saying they're a fan if you need help , *hes the guy welding StarShip* Matt: well… anyone smart really… Jack (and Ryan) : the Dr Who Set/Prop designer (Ben) hes done some stuff us (think he snuck in a name plate on a show of Jack and Ryan name or something , saw a tweet about that before) Ryan: not really any that's surprising… there was the time Macauly Culkin wore our shirt (press my awesome button) “our” being RT Jeremy: Cool meeting Xavier Woods but like we know hes a gaming fan and watches a lot of content like ours… still on Whose Line Johnathon Mangum is a AH fan , even messaging me at one point. Trevor in chat “what if president trump rode up in a Salad Chalice shirt” , Jack: one guy who bought it , like “im hip with the kids” Ryan: can you imagine someone less likely to be seen near a salad? Matt: I mean ryan he thinks he has to drink them so…. Jeremy: also been having a lot of solicitors recently for some reason… really annoying and during a pandemic. Ordered a sign thats basically “fuckoff im not answering the door LEAVE” , have a ring doorbell (some kind of doorbell app where you can talk to people at the door i guess?) but when im recording cant be like “hang on a second - FUCKOFF” Ryan: i DO feel like you have the kind of job you could do that , if anything youd put them in the video like “hey you're live right now what you need” … Jack managed to crash 7D2D on my local system already that's a good sign (brief technical difficulties music playing as it cut to ryans screen in the game)

#AH #Chit chat #livestream #Ryan Haywood #Jeremy Dooley #july 2020 #text #text post #backed up #for later #me #achievement hunter #long post #QnA #chat

8 notes · View notes

fairycosmos · 5 years

Note

I don't think I can go on living for much longer and I don't have anyone I can talk to. No one wants to help me. They all pretend they care, but I know they're lying. I just want to go home. I know I don't belong here.

hey love. i'm so fuckin sorry to hear that you're going through such a difficult time right now. idk the specifics of what is going on or what had lead you to this point - and i think to some extent, it's ok to process negative emotions. to cry, to breakdown sometimes, to not have it all figured out. but if you truly want the weight of it to be lifted you have to try to recognise the difference between having these urges and acting on them, between the lies that your mental illness is trying to convince you of, and the objective truth. it's normal to feel like you don't belong here because life is about continuously carving places for yourself out of the world. it's easy to believe in giving up, to not question anything your brain is telling you, but just taking 5 minutes a day to ground yourself in reality could make a huge difference. i absolutely promier that you do not have to end your life in order for things to change. it's inevitable if you stick around long enough. you want peace and harming yourself is not the way to find it, not when there are so many other ways that are a hundred times more substantial. i know you're tired. i know the thought of putting in effort is exhausting, and seems impossible when you don't give a shit about your own wellbeing. but for now i'm simply just asking you to consider other alternatives, to block out the voice that tells you it's pointless. why do you think the people around you are lying? do you have genuine proof of this, or do you think it could be a tactic your brain is using so you further isolate yourself, feeding into the self destructive cycle? mental illness often makes us think in absolutes, to believe things that fit our self hating narrative even if they're not true - but i know you're strong enough to counteract this. you are. think of one person you trust, or that you want to trust, and then consider what you can actually do about that fact. you sent this ask for a reason and i'm so glad you did, because it shows that you're able to reach out, that you're able to put your thoughts into words bc some part of you still knows theres a chance. use that feeling in your actual life. you don't have to go into great detail, you just have to admit to that you're not ok and that you think you need additional support. whether it be a family member, a friend, anyone..... it's alright for it to feel embarrassing, it's alright to not know exactly what to say. it's about communicating and letting yourself be vulnerable. please try to prioritize the importance of that over what your mind is telling you. and if that's not an option, there are numerous helplines and support groups available, or you could make an appointment with your doctor to see if he/she can refer you to someone. suicidal thoughts, while not normal, are somewhat common and there is A LOT that can be done to identify the root causes of them, to begin learning healthier coping mechanisms so they don't take over your life etc. i know this is all unexplainably difficult. i know that your brain is only allowing you to see sense in the things that harm you. but i'm telling you from an indisputable outsiders perspective - you have so much worth. you are supposed to be here. taking away your own future over thoughts and feelings that can be otherwise tackled is not going to solve anything. it's ok to be sad but it's not ok to let it dictate all aspects of you, which is easier said than done, but a professional can show you how to achieve that over time. you honestly have the rest of eternity to be dead and only this very short, infinitely rare moment to be alive. please don't take that away from yourself, please try to let the weight of your own significance sink in. even if you can't fully believe me, just recognise it as a possibility for now. all of this is so fuckin temporary, above all else, and that's the biggest trick of mental illness. because it totally convinces you that the pain will always be this intense, but it won't. please consider what you need to do for your own health, even if it goes against everything you're feeling. just finding one person, between hotlines and doctors and family and friends, is good enough. give them the chance to be there for you. they will appreciate the honesty. it's ok if you need time to work up to it. it's ok to be afraid, and there is no deadline of rush. all of this is a process and the urge to give up will always be a part of it, but you deserve so much better than that. and it's waiting for you, if you have a bit of faith in/empathy for your future self. okay? take this one day at a time and let that be enough, because the only factor you can control entirely, is the present moment. it's about looking at what you need VS what you want and knowing there's productivity and peace in choosing the former. you don't have to worry about anything else, it's all an abstract and ever changing concept. you can and will pull yourself back from the brink of this because you are the only person who can, and you have the tools to do so. i would hate hate hate for you to act impulsively and then regret the choice you made once it was completely irreversible. which would likely be the outcome. there are so many people, no matter how much you won't want to accept it, who will help you if you let them know there's a problem in the first place. taking that initial step is one of the hardest and most freeing parts, and you are fuckin capable. even if some days all you do is cry and hold you back, even if sometimes it all feels genuinely impossible, please take a breath and stick around. you are not an exception to the rule and happiness is not linear or constant - but it is out there waiting for you, in so many different forms. it's alright if you can't bring yourself to believe me right now. and it's ok to be sad, but it's not ok to let it control the fate of your entire human existence. which is a lot easier said than done, but a professional will literally show you how to achieve that. please, try to take a step back and acknowledge the falsity, the pointlessness, of the self destructive cycle. you have the power to break it, one small effort at a time. and it doesn't have to be an every day thing - even just making the conscious choice to practice a self compassionate or healthy coping mechanism a few times a week (even if u feel stupid), will make a difference. like i said before, there are so many avenues to peace that don't involve hurting yourself. okay? i believe in you with all my heart and i know you're doing better than you realize just by sending this. i'm sending you a lot of love and lending you strength whenever you need it. if you want to talk please message me anytime. you are not alone, and so many of us understand. take it one day at a time.

https://ibpf.org/resource/list-international-suicide-hotlines

#tw suicide #take it easy man you're goin to be ok #anon

10 notes · View notes

airoasis · 5 years

Text

Why I Choose Bitcoin Cash

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/why-i-choose-bitcoin-cash/

Why I Choose Bitcoin Cash

I prefer a Peer to see digital money over the whole lot. Correct now the first-class form of this comes in the form of Bitcoin cash, which holds the ticker BCH on virtually all exchanges. My title is Collin Enstad, i’ve lived in the USA my entire lifestyles. I am a freelance director / cinematographer / steadicam operator. I first heard about Bitcoin in 2013 in the course of its bubble, the place it peaked at $1200. I consider my first purchase was once around $one hundred fifty however I only bought a bit bit, as much as I might find the money for being a broke school pupil. I made some cash and purchased matters with it, like this bizarre digicam rig. Of course part of the adoption of bitcoin is brought about via men and women speculating trying to generate income off of it. But i noticed I had actual utility, I could use it as money. An investment that’s liquid as hell. Excellent. I requested an harmless query in late 2015 on the uncensored bitcoin subreddit, /r/btc: ELI5: Why achieve this many individuals insist on a small block size?. I got first-rate answers, similar to Blockstreams function in taking up the progress, how Peter Todd remains to be seeking to these days to kill 0-affirmation transactions, and how the Core devs have been proscribing the bottom layer to push a 2nd one that they claimed would be even higher than the actual blockchain.All of these aspects nonetheless maintain proper to nowadays. I even respect a number of the names within the thread from again then with persons I still speak to in these days. I even had some put up calling out theymos, the king of censorship, round this time. How things have no longer transformed. The extra I dig up the more obvious the manipulation of public opinion. Once more, this was once in 2015 this was all being called out, 4 years ago. Thats close to 1/2 of bitcoins lifetime. Crypto is really just politics, but on a time scale which appears hundreds and hundreds of times faster.I was once continuously a huge blocker. 1MB is tiny. Its less knowledge than a 2d of this video. It gave the impression a majority of the community back in 2015 was once for bigger blocks too. How a small crew of Core developers took over and sabotaged the bitcoin experiment with never-ending small blocks will be rather the exciting case be taught in historical past class. Im nonetheless seeking to utterly wrap my head around how Gavin, the character Satoshi entrusted with the keys to the bitcoin code, used to be pushed out and ostracized for looking the logical answer, higher blocks.Its a narrative that takes a long time to tell, and entails a false Satoshi. Im currently engaged on a feature size documentary about the shitshow that’s bitcoins history. The real down and dirty bitcoin politics, no longer some loud mouth troll showing up on tv spouting nonsense. So the fork happened in August 2017 and the large block version, Bitcoin cash, didn’t win over the hearts and minds of traders. Instantaneous ridicule from the Core persons ensued, as used to be par for the path. Bcash is trash was once their mantra, in an try to rip the word bitcoin out of its name. Now take into account, theymos fairly ramped up his censorship on /r/bitcoin in 2015. Reddit used to be THE spot to talk bitcoin, and theymos actions make him, individually, the only greatest affect on this whole Scaling warfare. Go to any publish from again then about theymos increasing moderation and appear at how many individuals vehemently adverse it.One of bitcoins most important residences is censorship-resistance, however apparently whenever you go away the protocol layer you additionally abandon all of its ethos. When your methods hotel to silencing the opposition you understand your arguments aren’t on stable floor. If they were, they might let all of the dissent come their approach and evaporate before them in the face of truth. However no. The block and ban buttons are used as a type of religious piety. This itself was once a tremendous red flag that some thing used to be wrong with Bitcoin. As a latest concrete instance of manipulation, My ultra-modern video criticizing the lightning community was once the top put up on /r/btc, except every week historic news story broke in regards to the Twitter CEO, Jack, purchasing a hardware pockets all of a sudden unseated it. This Jack story was once in a antagonistic sub and it won the highest spot in an hour. Mods deleted the submit shortly after. The account had a history of vote botting. Proof Of Social Media. Par for the course for those against peer to peer money. And this this is the place I just get angry.BTC does no longer work as a trustworthy form of money, but its still pushed on unsuspecting noobs, many who now go to the bcash sunday service. These social media influencers have 10s of hundreds of thousands of followers that they preach the nice word to absolutely this many folks wouldnt listen to any person who was just basically unsuitable! This market is immature and albeit, just dumb. I really awoke to all of this when instantly I was paying $1 for a transaction rate in early 2017. This isn’t what I signed up for. My money will have to not disappear every time I need to move it. When Bitcoin cash forked, I was all in, actually with my nonetheless tiny stash and figuratively from an ideological standpoint. Does this provide me investment bias? Almost always, however again, Im now not talking tremendous cash right here.Irregardless, I do my research and its the one coin i can confidently put my cash in. I do know what it is trying to do is the reason bitcoin was created in the first place, which is what once more? Oh yeah, to offer each person in the world an possibility to be their own bank. To give humans the potential to transact with anyone in the world with out the necessity of a 3rd celebration, even if they make not up to $2 a day. That is bitcoin. I kept diving deeper into the rabbit hole. Undoubtedly each person couldnt be this deluded however they were. Advocating for the shrewd factor of raising the blocksize and how BCH is a reliable variation of Bitcoin on social media has been tiring. I dont know the way a few of these trolls are so lively and simply hostile.I grew up with the web, part of the primary iteration that had social media for his or her whole middle and excessive institution experience. However these bitcoin guys man, the most poisonous i have ever seen. You have to have thick epidermis when you even believe about having impartial idea in crypto. Its sad. I haven’t any doubt there are individuals whose full-time job it is to sow up disagreement and strife within people who want to see Bitcoin be the arena money. Theres even proof of In November of 2017 I made a industrial for BCH with the support of the Bitcoin money association. It used to be a excessive high-quality industrial in a barber store which showed bitcoin getting used as cash. Response from the group was once nice, and i located myself in Tokyo a pair months later shooting the Satoshis vision convention, where a few of the Bitcoin cash group attended.I interviewed lots of the prime leaders in BCH for the period of that point interval for my documentary together with Craig Wright. This man appeared to come out of nowhere and was once a large suggest of Bitcoin cash. He had charisma, unquestionably, even when his Satoshi claims have been iffy. I consider the BCH neighborhood sided with him on account that he was once so anti-core. An enemy of an enemy is your buddy. And on the grounds that this buddy was very aggressive and outspoken in the direction of the purpose, many were inclined to let his shadiness slide.However very quickly after this convention actual bitcoin devs, who in reality work on and comprehend the bitcoin protocol, began calling him out on his lies. It was once rough to confess youd been duped, but right here we all are. Then, of direction he forked off into his possess coin months later, and his fraud lives on. Then comes the altcoin arguments. For those who dont like BTC so much simply use nano? Dash is the real peer to see cash! Lol noob do you even cardano? Well, considering BCH has the identical transaction historical past relationship again to the genesis block in 2009, one could argue the distribution of the coin is more decentralized than any of the altcoins, due to the fact that it has been around the longest.Im a strong believer in Proof of work as well. Even though BCH has a lot less hashpower than BTC, it has been shown how a gigantic portion of hash would transfer to BCH in safeguard of a malicious actor, like we noticed within the hashwar. The miners like Bitcoin money, however they generally follow gains, and this means mining BTC and BCH on the same price as the fee ratio between them. Now that BCH is free from its former crippled blocksize, most things the altcoins can do, BCH would enforce itself. Even things just like the lightning community would work muchhhh higher on Bitcoin cash as a result of the small charges to open and shut channels. Bitcoin was once intended to be the one crypto that ruled all of them, absorbing the quality altcoin facets. Vitalik Buterin found out this was no longer the case to any extent further, and he ran off to make Ethereum in 2015 after a lot combating with the Core devs. So right here I to find myself, in March 2019, nonetheless a supporter of Bitcoin cash. That you may believe the creative and grassroots power of individuals who just wish to construct. I hear the Bitcoin OGs say its the same spirit that bitcoin had it in its early days.Persons that CARE about making bitcoin exceptional again. And of path, the small blocks made building apps problematic for devs, because the excessive charges and sluggish confirmations might disable some functions who relied on inexpensive and speedy transactions. Full blocks rationale unreliability. And if youre a dev and need to construct an app, why within the hell would you use a base protocol that can instantly price $50 for a single use. If BCH stops being the excellent type of P2P money, make no mistake, i’d drop aid. Im no longer a blind follower and am at all times watching to mission my beliefs. Tokens, Decentralized handles, Badger wallet, suggestions.Cash, CashShuffle, Satoshidice the record goes on. So many of those projects are simply now hitting the Bitcoin cash market, and wallets are looking to catch up and implement these elements as speedy as they may be able to.Its nonetheless early in Bitcoin Cashs development existence, and the power within the community is the equal one I felt once I first received into it, vibrant, filled with hope for a greater future, and now with an added tenacity to make certain that no dangerous actors can once once more spoil the imaginative and prescient of Peer to look cash for the complete world. .

#bitcoin #bitcoin cash #bitcoincash #crypto #cryptocurrency

1 note · View note

batterymonster2021 · 5 years

Text

Why I Choose Bitcoin Cash

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/why-i-choose-bitcoin-cash/

Why I Choose Bitcoin Cash

#bitcoin #bitcoin cash #bitcoincash #crypto #cryptocurrency

1 note · View note

ruslanalekseev · 3 years

Text

Was Hiruzen a Good Hokage?

No. As many people have already pointed out, Hiruzen was very indecisive, and he always did what his advisors told him to. Which wouldnt be that bad, if not the fact that almost every single one of their decisions were suggested to them by Danzo.

Hiruzen might have had good intentions, but good intentions wont do you much good, if:You orchestrate the massacre of one of the founding clans in your village. You dont react to bullying towards the villages probably most valuable shinobi.You cant even bring yourself to killing one of the greatest criminals from your village

· Suggested Reading

What if a gay person was elected as the POTUS?

We have already had a gay President. James Buchanan Jr. was the 15th President (18571861) He was a member of the Democratic Party.

The only president to remain a bachelor, Buchanan's personal life has attracted great historical interest. Buchanan had a close and intimate relationship with William Rufus King, an Alabama politician. Buchanan and King lived together in a Washington boardinghouse for many years, from 1834 until King's departure for France in 1844.

King referred to the relationship as a "communion", and the two attended social functions together. Contemporaries also noted the closeness. Andrew Jackson called King "Miss Nancy" and prominent Democrat Aaron V.

Brown referred to King as Buchanan's "better half", "wife" and "Aunt Fancy"

------

How did Canada manage to control COVID 19 so well despite its shared border with the US?

When doctors and scientists here in Canada told us that the COVID-19 virus would not only kill some people, but others who contracted the disease might suffer permanent damage to organs and body systems, we listened and became afraid. Then, when it was shown some young children also suffered devastating organ failures, we knew we must all do what we can to protect ourselves and others.

We didnt each need to personally know someone who has been so affected, we just imagined how our own actions could cause this result. For some reason, Americans do not seem to feel that same empathy for their fellow citizens. Tragic and sad

------

What is the significance of WhatsApp for Facebook?

Why did Facebook acquire WhatsApp at such a hefty price of $19 billion?

Let us think about it. Say you are talking to your girlfriemd and you decide to go for a movie coming weekend.

It is not a big information for you. But for facebook it is a priceless piece of information. Since it they know now that you ar going to the movie they will project all the ads that is pertaining to movie going.

. Hence facebook achieves a greater accuracy of targeted ads. And hence 19Billion dollars.

Also facebook knows everything about you except your messages to your intimate people. Now that they bought whatsapp they literally know everything about you to sell you out when the time comes.

------

Will Joe Biden be worse than Trump?

Worse at what? I guess it depends on what you value and what you place importance on. If youre a Republican partisan it doesnt matter what Biden does itll be worse than Trump.

If youre a Democrat partisan it doesnt matter what Biden does because itll be better than Trump. If youre an independent youll recognize that all Presidents have pluses and minuses. Theyll do things at annoy you and things youll applaud.

I didnt vote for Trump in 16 and hes done things I despise and things I applaud. I didnt vote for Obama either time and he did thinks I liked and things I hated

------

Do many Chinese people hate Fujianese people?

I don't know where did you get this view.

In college, I had a roommate coming from Fujian who is an authentic, courteous, helpful person with lots of computer's knowledge. Every time our computers occur in problems, our first thought is to seek for his help not to go maintenance store straightly because of its expensive charge. There are a few Fujianese.

as far as I'm concerned, They all good person through conversation and cooperation. But, I can't say Fujianese all good people since I had met all good Fujianese. In working with people, The significant thing We need to do is giving our sincere heart to them.

Similarly, you will be rewarded for your sowing.

------

How old should a kid be before seeing Deadpool?

FWIW, the airline cut is devoid of *all* sexual content (to the point of blurring out the slight glimpse of butt-crack visible in the opening credits, as well as losing the Stan Lee cameo), but I dont believe they removed *any* of the violence or swearing.

What a country!As for child-appropriateness, it depends on the child. I was OK with my kid seeing the airline cut because he never swears and he doesnt like gory violence (it wasnt too gruesome on my 5 phone screen).

Other kids his age may not be able to handle this material. Heck, I know adults who wouldnt do so well with this material

------

How can we stop people from throwing garbage in the empty plots?

Please know that if people throw biodegradable garbage only in an empty plot after removing all plastics and dry wastes, you are actually replenishing the ground.

This will improve vegetation of the plot.The second approach is to promote home composting and community composting. This can happen only if there is source segregation.

Third approach is to penalize through a law.Instal leaves composter in the entrance of the plot and encourage people to deposit the dried leaves into it. Many aesthetically good looking composters are available.

The process is very simple and no stink involved.Be creative and you will have many more options. Cheers.

------

Could we derive energy from gravity in space?

You mean free flowing gravity? Yes.

Look at a grandfather clock and see the weights it has to keep it going. Except for dams most of the ways are small but all together make up huge amounts. You could use the same clock system method with a much larger counter weight and just by hand moving it back up daily to the top would generate constant power.

In other words you could produce huge amounts of potential power by a little daily hand labor.Now you got me wondering if there is a natural limit it this because it is not being done or that people are just lazy in not doing this

------

How will the GOP change if Trump loses to Biden?

I dont think they will change at all, at least in the short term.

Trumps presidency has done one useful thing - exposed the corrupt innards of the Democratic party, and the Republicans, with or without Trump, are going to want to follow through on things, especially when the Durham report comes out. Trump has also shown how to do things economically, such that even Biden wants to plagiarize him. Theres been absolutely nothing wrong with his policies.

They were working great prior to the pandemic and theres no reason to think they wont work again when things finally get back to normal

------

Who is the best teacher for sociology for the UPSC optional preparation in Delhi?

Hello there .I am a Civil engineer , who did not have any prior knowledge about sociology .

I was an expressive person and with the suggestions of friends , I chose sociology as my optional .I went to Pranay Aggarwal Sir and that was the best decision I made . Reasons :-He took classes in small batches with led me to focus more on the subject .

He is very interactive which makes sociology come out very naturally from oneself .He is very helpful and extremely accepting of different ideas which gave me confidence and started loving the subject . His notes are all encompassing and I can vouch for it

------

Why was Paul Manafort sent to prison?

This just reported by NY Times:Banker Accused of Arranging $16 Million in Loans to Manafort to Gain High-Level Trump PostA banker in Chicago has been changed with trying to buy an appointment as Treasury Secretary. He arranged $16 million in loans to Paul Mafort. I dont know if the prosecutors knew about that alleged crime when Manafort was sent to prison.

This news certainly speaks to what kind of person Manafort is. It continues to astound me how corrupt Trump is that he picks people like Manafort. How can Trump voters have been so clueless to have voted for this narcissistic(oops, I better restrain myself).

------

Why was the Roman Empire so successful?

the roman empire was successful in its government form.it probably had the most advanced government in ancient times, a republic which represent each of the classes in society.

Outsiders or barbarians could also aspire to gain citizenship if they work hard enough, slaves could gain or buy their freedom. This makes roman empire have a equal opportunity system similar to the american dream.But things slowly deteriorated once ceasar become dictator for life, or sulla and marius trying to monopolize power through using the military triumphs.

It lead to rise of emperors and rulers not acccountable to the public, and right to rule slowly degenerate into hereditary succession or military coup.

------

Did the music of led Zeppelin change your life?

Yes!

As does every song does, some more than others. The Rain Song played while I was enjoying the company of a young lady I met on Manhattan Beach as I was coming out the ocean, exhausted from surfing for 5 hours. I collapsed on my board and was laying there taking in the scene when this beautiful blonde girl with curly hair, piercing blue eyes, and a body of a Black girl, blocked the sun, looked down and said are you ok?

. That was the beginning of summer of 91 and we had fun. Especially the night we spent in a motel on the beach, listening to led Zeppelin

------

Who is the most under appreciated American president?

Adams greatest war president in our nations history.When almost everyone in the young country wanted war with France egged on by that snake Jefferson. Adams held back, he understood war was not necessary would be destructive and would cripple the country for decades, he also well understood his stand would likely cost him his reelection but he stood firm.

The country did not go to war but he did loose his office. Such a shame the country remembers the man who did his most noble service as a citizen under an English king and not the man who formed the nation after the Revolutionary War

------

Why did you leave Hinduism for Islam?

People group or regroup into religion for rudimentary security reasons, not due to any love for a religion.

Any person who understands the first alphabet of any religion will know the purpose of religion is to help and serve the society he or she lives selflessly, particularly those who donu2019t follow his/her beliefs and faith has to be served, loved and cared.If someone thinks that his/her religious group is better than the other, it discredit the fundamental first alphabet of the religion. Islam, Hinduism or any religion in the world, if it is practiced by grouping and subgrouping its practioners, it is deplorably divisive for the society and in general human welfare

------

In WW2 during the Battle of France, why did it take so long for France to surrender?

Why didn't France surrender earlier?

France waited so that the English could be evacuated from Dunkirk. They held the German back while the small boats could get in and get the boys home.

Then they had a resistance to organise not easy when you have a whole lot of tanks running over your toes. Finally, the Italians decided to pop in for a late entry in the game of conquest so they had them to send packing. Then they surrendered.

That is to say the French Government surrendered, the French people on the other hand fought on.If you have ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you see just how ferocious the French can be in their taunting of opponents.

0 notes

haunthearted · 6 years

Link

I wanted to recommend a very good website, especially to my trans, dysphoric or dissociative followers.

Gender Analysis is a very well researched, well-sourced website about the trans experience. I take whatever opportunities I can to write polite, good-faith, educational replies to people on Reddit who don't "get" trans things, and I always rely heavily on GA because whatever the topic, there will be an article filled with the original scientific papers rebutting transphobic viewpoints. It can also be useful for supporting conversations with parents/friends, because it has the primary research right there. For example, today I learnt that all the concept of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria ("my kid got a tumblr and now she says shes transgender because of peer pressure!") originated on three anti-trans websites, and despite its official-sounding name, has no research behind it. I knew that intellectually, but it's powerful to have the evidence clearly there for you.

Zinna Jones is one of the key writers there, and you may know her other work as she's been a prominent internet trans human for many years (how she has the courage and spoons for that, I will never know). One of her key experiences of gender dysphoria was depersonalisation: a weird, fuzzy, not-quite-thereness. On beginning hormones, it cleared up immediately: she had an "I didn't know what wrong felt like until I started feeling right" experience, as well you might if feeling oddly absent is your normal day-to-day experience. Because it wasn't a focus of how dysphoria was written about while she was coming up, she's done a lot of writing and research on it at Gender Analysis: describing what it felt like, researching comparable experiences in other trans narratives, and most recently trialing an anti-dissociative drug to see how it affected her.

Many of us come to ghosthood due to experiencing similar things to Jones - a not-quite-thereness, an oddness, a sense of timelessness and dislocation. Some of us very clearly associate it with trauma, a mental illness, or gender dysphoria; for others, it's just part of the fabric of life. I would like to recommend reading her posts on this particular topic to anyone who experiences something similar.

Now, if you relate to what she writes it doesn't mean you're transgender - don't panic - as varieties of depersonalisation can be a symptom of all sorts of other things - especially trauma and trauma-related conditions like BPD/CPTSD. But you might still find her descriptions useful.

On the other hand, if you are identifying as transgender and wondering if hormones are for you, you might find it validating or helpful.

(and because the world is horrible, there's no small chance that trans people are also traumatised. There's a great pair of posts that I'm sure you've already read, "That was dysphoria?" - but also her follow up, in which she re-experiences some of those symptoms as a depression.)

Finally, a recent post series explored an anti-depersonalisation drug, which you might be interested in exploring as an option for yourself. I had no idea there was such a thing!

In short, I was re-reading the archives this morning, and it occurred to me that a great many followers here might appreciate or find these posts useful. Make of them what you will, and best wishes to you all x

A tonne more thoughts after the cut:

This isn't meant to be "a trans blog", so I'm not going to focus on this too often. But certainly for me, Jones' posts really spoke to me and my experiences. I think there's a real danger in underselling how weird gender dysphoria feels. One sort of expects or assumes gender dysphoria is "I hate my breasts because I am a man"; there isn't so much written about how it can be "I'm tired, I don't really care, everything seems hollow and false, but I can't imagine life being any different because it's what I've always known, and it's not clearly anything to do with gender". That's been my experience - and it's incredibly hard to spot. I've been through six diagnoses since I was a teen (OCD, depression, anxiety, BPD, ADHD, autism), because while I've always been clearly unwell, it's hard to pinpoint gender dysphoria when it just manifests as brainweird, especially when that brainweird is you normal, as it was for Jones. For example, I've never really recognised my own face in the mirror. Weird, but whatever. When I was considering hormones last year, I decided to take up weightlifting as part of my experimentation process. It would allow me to see how I felt about developing a more masculine body, in a controlled way, and as someone who *hates* exercise, it would also be a useful test of commitment: was I dysphoric enough to motivate me to go to the gym? Because if not, I probably was not dysphoric enough to transition either. Well, I went three times a week and followed the correct food recommendations for building muscle until I could no longer afford either; and then it happened. I looked in the mirror and it was like a visceral, immediate shock of recognition. And now I can't unsee it. Every time I look in the mirror, my brain immediately pings back "nice Robert Plant vibe you got there man", which is ridiculous; no one else on the planet would see me and think that. But that very small amount of muscle, and slightly-more-masculine-shoulder/arm-profile, was enough to make my brain recognise itself for the first time.

Sometimes you don't understand what "wrong" feels like until you have "right" to compare it to.

(I think those of us with early experience of abuse might also relate to that; the way that being loved and respected by a good person later in life can be both shocking, and bring on a period of processing and heavy reflection because it illustrates how very wrongly you were treated before. Even if you know it intellectually, just the experience can be profound. Certainly, I've got a few experiences of not-being-taken-advantage-of which were absolutely shattering, like I was being taught how to love myself for the first time.)

And as you might expect, I'm also feeling very reluctant to pursue transition. This sort of nebulous dysphoria is, well - . I envy very much the "I knew I was trans from the moment I hit puberty because I hated the gender I was living in" people, who clearly see gender as their problem. It's very hard to contemplate something as life-changing as transition when its motivated by an increasing certainty that the only cure for my incurable mental ill is a different hormone balance, and as many days I have where I ask myself why I didn't transition 5 years ago already, I have others where I know I'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming through the process as my last resort.

Like, a few years ago I was at a "Even if I am transgender, I think I'd rather live as a woman [for reasons]" point; and now I'm at a "I would still rather live as a woman, but I am desperate to have enough disposable income to buy a really nice set of towels and maybe transition would make me well enough to not only work, but have a real career, and maybe I could buy a car, and go on holiday, and start buying tailored clothes instead of charity shop, and maybe redecorate my house in faux-Victorian style, and I really don't care if everybody hates me and I no longer have a coherently cisgender body, I would do anything to be able to afford unusual cheeses and teas rather than subsisting on stew" point. It sounds so shallow, but there it is; because so many of the problems I have don't feel dysphoria-related, because I'm only understanding them as dysphoria-related because nothing else has made an impact, my focus is increasingly on the little things in life I want to achieve, and maybe could achieve if my brainweird was fixed. I'm now fairly sure that if/when I do transition physically, I'll continue to recognise myself more, and realise how much of an impact physical dysphoria was having.

But it's what I know. And like Hamlet says, easier to bear the struggles we know than fly to others that we know not of.

Sidenote:

Intermittently, you'll see approaches which try to set up trans or mentally ill people as enemies to otherkin people, like the two experiences cannot co-exist, or like otherkin people ought to take the fall for the way transphobic use them as an anti-trans "gotcha". I personally find this very frustrating: I prefer approaches which are open, rather than closed off. Many/most of my followers here are either trans, mentally ill, have trauma, experience dysphoria or some other unspecified bodyweird/brainweird. In real life, I have four otherkin/therian/furry friends - and they too all meet that description. {There are also many otherkin who see their history as spiritual or religious, who aren't trans/mentally ill/traumatised, or who don't really know the source of their experiences - all of which is also OK!}.

I would always prefer to take a holistic and compassionate approach to the way experiences can overlap, rather than a combatative/competitive/polarised one; any hostile or fightin' talk messages/replies will be ignored, blocked or deleted as appropriate, because that's not a value I have for my online space. Although I'm open to discussing or exploring it, so please don't hold back if you want to talk about your experiences in good faith.

In short, there is a fairly significant overlap between people who come to identify as transgender/dysphoric/mentally ill, and those who come to identify as otherkin, or who might temporarily identify with one of those experiences while figuring things out - and this post is for them. Politics makes things sound so simple and clean-cut, but people are messy and complex, and I'd much rather help individuals navigate and explore their experiences - even if they are contradictory, or don't support my political goals. Trying to figure out brainweird and bodyweird is challenging enough, without making people tread on eggshells during the process.

#ghostly self care #queer spectrality #ghostkin

4 notes · View notes

stellar-stag · 7 years

Text

Wow it’s been a while since I did a personal update here huh

I’ve honestly transitioned a lot of my venting/personal stuff to twitter

(I promise I havent abandoned you for my furry friends)

(I kinda have)

(I totally have)

(sorry)

But I feel like the last couple months have been a whirlwind for me, so I may as well keep y’all in the loop. I’m gonna sort these by topic.

First off, I had some issues with my romantic feelings. There’s a guy, a very very good friend, who is just fantastic in so many ways. Friendly and kind and supportive, progressive and enthusiastic, and shares so many of my interests. Seems natural that I would fall for him, right?

Well I did, and it resulted in a lot of emotional duress.

He has a girlfriend, and I knew this going in, but I didn’t fight my attachment. In the process of admitting my feelings to him and working through everything, I learned a lot about myself and got some practice in controlling my emotional state and how I react to things. But I also relied on him as an emotional crutch and used him for validation, especially during some particularly low emotional points, which is unfair to him. It is only because he is immensely understanding that we remain close friends, and this could have easily resulted in disaster.

But through this process I have grown, and identified a new issue blocking me from being of completely sound mind: Low self-esteem and reliance on others for validation. During my more anxious periods, I would slip into joking self-deprecation, and somewhere along the way it stopped being so joking. But surely, now that I’m taking meds for anxiety it would stop, right? Well, no. Turns out, even if I stopped consciously having thoughts of “Wow, I’m so bad at this”, I didn’t automatically gain appreciation or acceptance of myself. This manifests in a particularly dangerous manner when guys who are attractive are nice to me.

I end up conflating kindness with romantic intent, and decide that obviously, if someone doesn’t have romantic interest in me, I must be irreparably flawed in some way. This is bullshit, and I consciously understand that, but my subconscious doesn’t play by the rules. So I end up in a self-loathing spiral that only manifests in periods of intense romantic desire, and a month later I’m exhausted, bruised, and have run the risk of alienating those around me who care about me.

So how to fix it? I suppose I’ll need to work on drawing validation from within, so that rejection feels less of a condemnation of my character and everything I am. It won’t be simple, to be sure, but understanding the issue is the key to overcoming it.

Here’s hoping.

Secondly: I started working out! As of today, March 24th, I have been to the gym 12 times this month (half the days, holy shit) and thats because I, last week, decided to go from 3 workouts a week to 5, solely because I wanted to. If you told me a year ago that I would, of sound mind and body and my own volition, wake up every weekday at 5:45am to go workout for an hour, and enjoy the experience, I would have called you a liar.

But I am, and I do. I think it’s benefitting my mental health and self confidence, and I’m thankful that I’m in a place where its even an option. This is only possible due to a coalition of so many factors: A free gym in my office and a natural predilection to waking up early to remove barriers, I started taking Vyvanse in January to aid in my attention issues (not sure if I have ADD/ADHD or what, but it’s helping me remained focused in all aspects of my life and for that I am grateful). And, of course, two people who aided in the impetus for beginning and making it a habit: My dad, for giving me crippling self-worth issues my entire life and then visiting in February and criticizing my health and weight (because I was sweating after walking up a hill, which more and more I realize is not actually an indicator of my exertion! I am just a person who sweats easily, and its more a function of temperature and endocrine system than anything else) and giving me the sheer spite to begin working out, and the guy I was crushing on (who is intensely into working out, and I wanted to impress him. Yeah, I was hella thirsty. Sue me).

Regardless of the reasoning, I found that (once I cut cardio because seriously, fuck cardio), I enjoy working out in the mornings. It’s calming to wake up by exertion and then cool down slowly at my desk before other people even wake up. It’s given rise to a ritual of sorts where I get to my desk, deal with my emails, make breakfast and tea, all before anyone shows up, so that I can really hit the ground running. And more than that, I don’t have a goal in mind. I’m doing this because I know it’s good for me and I want to be healthy, and I enjoy the exertion and following “good” tiredness. If I was trying to lose weight or trim fat, or stuck only to cardio, I would have given up by now. But its a habit, and I love it, and I’m sleeping better, eating better, and feeling better.

Again, this is only possible because of an alignment of several factors, but I’m thankful for it, and I’m glad I got out of the mindset that “workouts must suck but people do them because they wanna lose weight”. You don’t gotta do anything you don’t want to do, and I wish I had realized that sooner. Im feeling way better about my body, even, because despite the fact that I haven’t lost weight or gotten trimmer from working out, I know I’m eating (pretty) well and working out, and that my body does everything I need it to. I can take pride in the callouses on my hands and the soreness of my body, because they’re proof of dedication, exertion, and effort, and those are way better things to feel good about than shape and size, anyways. If people think I’m unhealthy because I have fat, they can suck it.

Thirdly, I’ve begun looking for a condo to buy! Housing in the bay area is STUPID EXPENSIVE (and yes everyone knows this, and I know this, but it bears repeating). But I can put a down payment on a one bedroom in a good location, and I’m prequalified for a loan, and I just need to keep waiting and pouncing on leads. I think I’ll be happier living by myself with a kitchen to myself, and still going out to social events to prevent becoming a hermit. Plus, with this setup I can maybe bring dudes back and not have to show them the pigsty that is our living room or the shoebox that is my bedroom. I was terrified at the start of this process, but my mom and the realtor have been awesome about taking this step by step and ensuring nothing is confusing or surprising, which is sweet.

Fourthly, possibly because I’ve been taking Vyvanse but also possibly because I’ve finally begun understanding what the hell I’ve been doing, I’ve really hit my groove at work. The project I’m working on is complex but interesting, challenging but well understood, and I don’t feel alone but still get to feel a sense of ownership. It’s not the most fulfilling thing ever (I don’t know that working on payments platforms for a corporation ever will be) but I enjoy work, I don’t loathe going to work, and despite the fact that I was sick as a dog all this week, I came in everyday (after working out) to work full productive days, and I was happy at the end of each of them, more or less. Its not perfect but its head and shoulders above what most people get from their jobs, and I’m immensely fortunate to be in this position.

Fifthly, this is more a continuation of already known things, but I’m making cool friends in the furry fandom. I’ve made good friends, some who I hope I will keep as friends for the rest of my life, and I’ve already made plans to go to Reno in June and Disneyworld in November to hang out and have fun with them. As nerve wracking as being an adult is sometimes, the freedom is something I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Sixthly, I’ve been taking a creative writing workshop in SF! It finished last weekend and I’m happy to not need to commute each week anymore, but I learned a lot about reading like a writer and choices you can make as a writer to achieve desired effects. The workshop focuses on narrators and how who is telling the story tells it, and the model they use for exercises is SO HELPFUL. We would read an excerpt of something, discuss how the narrator/choices/tense/mood all work together, and then we would write something in a similar format about whatever we wanted. Lemme tell yall, that is so much more helpful to me as a student than just prompts. Having a guide to format is like drawing from references, its helpful and and great for learning and gives you the tools to make your own things later on. I highly recommend it, and I can’t wait to get back to my book.

Got a lot of art to make first, though. I’ve definitely improved a lot in artistic skill and confidence, and I’m loving finding niche styles that I like and mimicking them. The stained glass pic I posted yesterday is proof of that, I feel. Its drawn from Mucha and various real life stained glass windows and a bit from Kingdom Hearts, but I took these and the tools at my disposal and wove it into something that feels complete. I figured out how to apply a cloudy “glass” texture, glows, stabilization, symmetry tools, pattern design, and more all through the process, and I know theres so much room to iterate and grow, in shading and coloring and proportion. But even knowing I have room to grow, I’m proud of what I put out and I put a lot of my heart into that piece (yes, its a birthday gift for workout boy. Shut up). I think I’m going to accept commissions for pictures in this style, even. It’s great fun.

So yeah, the last couple of months have been intense. I’ve had ups and downs, but I’ve learned and grown a lot, and I think I’m in a really good place in my life right now, and I hope that every one of you achieves a similar level of peace.

#ramblings of a gay man #long post #life update #wrote almost 2k words about myself #vanity thy name is george

9 notes · View notes

ofcloudsandstars · 7 years

Note

Hi it's me anon. Just call me Desperate lol. I resonate with what you're saying about pushing yourself and expecting certain results. I need to reevaluate what my faith means to me. I guess maybe I'm not recognizing my spells or intent in action.

I suffer from an eating disorder in which I’ve had a recent relapse and it’s so insidious, I feel like I’m not good enough and none of my efforts, including magical, were working out. I am drawn to Oracle work, I can lucid dream, and I want to learn to work in the Astral. Anyways I tried ouija boards and spirit work and nothing happened there either.

sorry for my slow responses I am currently watching Howl’s moving castle and crying cause Joe Hisaishi’s music is magical and making me feel emotional and nostalgic and I love Miyazaki’s films especially the ones that have to do with magic like everytime I feel I am not good enough in my craft I watch Kiki’s Delivery service cause its about her trying to be a witch and losing faith then finding herself again and its very symbolic you should check it out!

Anyway you are not desperate?? I mean I am not getting that at all you just want someone to discuss certain troubles on your mind with and this is def not the stuff you can talk to a therapist about cause therapy does not cover witchcraft haha. But yes you might not be recognizing your spells when they do manifest and also theres a lot of other details going on here like the eating disorder and the spirit work.

So first of all- I mean before I begin, I am not an expert on this nor do I have any personal experiences with stuff like that but what I can guess with eating disorders it is also linked to anxiety (which hoho at least I know that well) and is a feeling of shame and feeling as if you’re not good enough and it seems to be like a battle with yourself. If you are already facing a boss fight that has to do with that its going to definitely be creating negative blocks when you are trying to manifest something. Something similar I have dealt with in this past year as I have mentioned before was my severe anxiety and trying to get over it and continue my life though I hardly had a will to live at that point. Anyway one thing I am good at is blessing other people and I was getting so angry with myself cause this year I blessed so many people close to me that I cared about and helped them achieve goals they’ve been struggling to get (like getting jobs they loved and that pays them so well that they can be independent, being able to buy a fucking apartment in paris, being able to move out and be independent and not get abused by their parents) but when it came to myself all of my spells either manifested half assed or not at all and its like that sort of shame and feeling that you aren’t good enough will permeate your magic when you try to manifest something for yourself. However this year I realized how important positivity is. Yeah positivity sounds like that rare and enchanted unicorn that only comes to those that are pure of heart and I always felt repulsed by the word cause I felt like I wasn’t even qualified ‘pure of heart’ to find it in me, but like I took advantage of the times I was mildly happy or even when I wasn’t I would meditate and focus on happy feelings and made up scenarios to make me ecstatic and when I was satisfied would visualize myself being happy.. Then when I was experiencing moments of ecstasy in those moments I would visualize things I would want to happen or attract to me and they would work in incredible ways. Like a few times this year I have made posts feeling like impostor syndrome cause I felt like I didn’t deserve some things that have happened to me this year but being positive and believing in yourself can make miracles happen forreal. Its really hard but its really such powerful magic. I’m a very stressed & depressed person so for me I do mental and energy practices (I aim for daily but its not always possible nor do I have the energy for it) to try to focus on positive energy to help promote more of it in me, but its not easy to achieve that. It’s irritating cause some people make positivity seem so natural and easy and negativity seem like some choice but its really the other way around. But if you work hard for it, it’s extremely rewarding.

You can use magic to help yourself right now but you also need to focus on yourself physically. You can still do the energy work exercises and try to focus on positivity, but also focus the positivity on yourself and focus on self love and compassion. It’s going to be a challenge of course but planting those thoughts in your mind that you are a strong and wonderful person and can overcome your obstacles can come back to help you out when you are going through tough times. I struggle horribly with confidence but I try to tell myself that it’s in my head and even if I pretend to be Cool™ no one will notice how I feel inside. When I face those issues lacking confidence I do get that voice of positivity that makes a comeback like 'its in your head! And no one else notices anyway!’ and it makes it a little better to handle. Ok also about astral and the spirits. So like- do NOT feel bad for spirits not contacting you haha. It can be for a million of reasons some being: a) spirits not being around and b) scary fucking manipulative abusive spirits wanting to ruin your life but your spirit guides or companions being your body guards and restraining them like the security guards on Real Housewives of Atlanta everytime there’s a fight. It can be tricky to contact spirits and honestly since a lot of no bueno things can happen I would suggest doing it with someone experienced that has done it multiple times before and that could help guide you instead of attempting alone. The Astral sounds very romantic but I projected once by accident over my body and it was like NOPEEE I felt so terrified and vulnerable and though I wish I could really throw myself down that rabbit hole of wonders, it comes with a lot of dangers. Also Astral projecting is hard. I haven’t been able to accomplish doing it again it was weirdly by accident. It might come naturally to some the way lucid dreaming is (I have been lucid dreaming since I was a kid it kind of slowed down and stopped for some reason very recently) but don’t feel bad that you don’t deal with the astral, like the astral is a hot ass mess anyway why you wanna go there? (Ok I am joking of course you do whatever you want, but like don’t feel bad you haven’t made it there yet haha). Also it doesn’t make you more or less of a witch to deal with spirits or the astral as well. Those are difficult arenas to get involved in and I feel like people being able to contact those worlds and spirits with ease have an advantage genetically, like mediums for example, you have to be born with it. (Though of course you can learn how to contact spirits and astral project over time it just requires work). And last point, focus on what has worked for you and it will open doors to other things too! Its great you are good at lucid dreaming, that is step 1 to learning how to project into the Astral if that’s the way you want to go. If you can control your will and mind in that state you can accomplish much more as well! Lucid dreaming also means that you do have a great sense of willpower and self control so look at that as a positive trait when you are feeling bad when dealing with personal obstacles you might feel no control over. There are challenges we face in life that makes us feel weak and helpless but you have a trait about you that shows you do have strength and control its just about finding how to apply it since reality is far more complicated than dreams! Also that’s really cool you are into oracle work that means you have a great sense of intuition! The first type of 'craft’ in my path I ever started was with divination- specifically cartomancy cause I was a kid and had no money to buy tarot shit and even if I did my parents would be like wtf is that, so I learned with playing cards lol but the ability to divine opens up your mind and intuition and the fact you can lucid dream means you have great will power so you really do have strong abilities for magic you just might have to find another way to go about it!

#ask #anon

1 note · View note

annaxkeating · 5 years

Text

Increase Your Landing Page Speed (By Stealing Our Homework)

If you’ve read Unbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Report (and you really should), then you already know why speed is so important this year. Slow-loading landing pages have always been an obstacle to higher conversions, and now Google is punishing poor mobile load times in its search rankings. To be successful in 2019, we—marketers—need to be thinking fast. But are we?

To find out, we polled almost 400 marketers on their attitudes around page speed and asked what (if anything) they were doing to get faster.

Just 56% of marketers are happy with their mobile load times, according to the 2019 Page Speed Report.

Almost three of every four respondents said they had taken steps to improve their page speeds over the last year, and that’s pretty good. Alarmingly, though, only half of marketers we surveyed are satisfied with their load times on mobile.

So most marketers are trying to get faster, but many aren’t where they want to be. Which begs the question: what are people doing to speed up their landing page load times?

Computer, enhance!

Only 39% of marketers have bothered to find out how fast their pages are actually loading. Not great.

Here, we start to see why marketers are somewhat pessimistic about their page speed progress. Just over half have optimized their landing page images—ostensibly one of the simplest ways to speed up your load times—and even fewer have done any of the real technical-sounding things they need to get faster. (I mean, fair, they sound pretty boring to us, too.)

Here’s a doozy, though: just one in three marketers have run a website speed test to find out whether their load times are impacting their conversions. That’s the easiest one!

And hey, we get it. Marketers are being asked to do more than ever before, often with fewer resources. If you’re a small team (or a single person, the smallest of the teams), you might feel you don’t have the time or expertise to meaningfully improve your page speed.

But I’ve gone and done the hard work for you—me, a film school graduate who, until recently, believed that his Apple computer was impervious to viruses. (Hoo boy, it is not.) I’ve spent hours talking to Unbounce developers, reading how-to guides, and generally just bombarding my brain with the most dull, technical page speed information I could get ahold of. (Apologies to said developers.) And if I can get my head around it, there’s no excuse for the rest of you.

Below, I’ve simplified some of the most effective ways to increase your landing page loading times in a guide. For each fix, I’ve indicated the technical difficulty and the estimated time it’ll take, so you know exactly what you’re getting yourself in to. Use the table of contents below to jump to what’s relevant to you, or go ahead and do it all in order.

Jump to a Landing Page Speed Fix

How to Check Your Landing Page Speed

Run a Google Speed Test (5 Minutes)

Try the Unbounce Landing Page Analyzer (5 Minutes)

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Easy Fixes

Reduce Your Page Content (15 Minutes)

Optimize Your Images (30 Minutes)

Host Your Videos Elsewhere (30 Minutes)

Audit Your Hosting Solution (30 Minutes)

Implement a CDN (30 Minutes)

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Intermediate Fixes

Minify HTML, JS, and CSS (15 Minutes)

Enable Browser Caching (15 Minutes)

Set Up GZIP Compression (15 Minutes)

Kill Needless Scripts and Plugins (30 Minutes)

Convert Images to Sprites (30 Minutes)

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Hard Fixes

Remove Render-Blocking JS and CSS (45 Minutes)

Start Hand-Coding with AMP

Final note: If you’ve built your page with Unbounce, you can skip a lot of this stuff—we make many speed fixes on the back-end automatically. In this post, look for the ‘Building Pages in Unbounce?‘ callout boxes to see if a given fix is something you need to implement.

Look for these callout boxes throughout this post to get Unbounce-specific tips and learn how we automatically optimize your landing pages to make them load super fast.

How to Check Your Landing Page Speed

First things first.

Before you throw on your hard hat and start hitting things with a hammer (both figuratively and literally), it’s important to have some idea of what’s working—and what’s not—on your landing page. That means running a speed audit.

It’s important to point out that, regardless of which speed test you use, you don’t want to get too hung up on your score. Achieving a perfect score is not always technically possible (and it might not even be desirable). Instead, use your results as a general guideline to improve page speed and implement the fixes that make sense for you.

Okay—let’s test them pages.

Run a Google Speed Test

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 5 Minutes

There are a bunch of great tools for testing your page speed, but why not start with the big dog itself? Google’s PageSpeed Insights is an awesome way to do a quick performance check-up with at-a-glance recommendations. (Ryan Engley, Unbounce’s VP of Product Marketing, explains how to interpret and act on your PageSpeed Insights results in this must-read blog post.) Then there’s Lighthouse, a newer tool from Google that provides a comprehensive analysis of your how your page presents to end users.

You’ll also want to run your page through Google’s Test My Site tool, which will check your speed from a mobile perspective.

Clicking on individual results in PageSpeed Insights will reveal your problematic page elements.

Running a Google speed test should only take a couple of minutes, and the results will help you identify some of the top opportunities to boost your landing page load times.

Try the Unbounce Landing Page Analyzer

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 5 Minutes

Running a speed test with Google should be your top priority, but PageSpeed Insights doesn’t give results tailored to landing pages. For that, you’ll want to run your page through the Unbounce Landing Page Analyzer, which not only provides feedback on page performance but includes a bunch of advice on creating more effective campaigns and kicking your conversions into overdrive.

Unbounce’s Landing Page Analyzer provides feedback on page speed, but also actionable advice on things like SEO, message match, and mobile-friendliness.

Building Pages in Unbounce? Then you’ll definitely want to give our Landing Page Analyzer a shot. Get best-practice recommendations for conversion optimization and see how your landing pages stack up against others in your industry.

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Easy Fixes

With your results from both Google and Unbounce, you’ll be well-equipped to move onto the actual work of making your page perform better. It’s time to pick up that hammer.

These fixes should be simple enough for anyone to tackle, regardless of their technical expertise.

Reduce Your Page Content

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 15 Minutes

We’ve marked this as an easy opportunity to increase your page speed, but it probably won’t feel like that when you start thinking about which elements on your page you can junk. Marketers love big hero shots, beautiful supporting imagery, and fun, animated explainer videos. But how much of that content is actually helping you drive conversions?

Visual content accounts for a huge portion of the size of an average web page—images account for over 20% of web page weight, as pointed out by Kinsta—and each element creates an HTTP request. That’s when your visitor’s browser pings your web server to request the files that make up the elements of your page. Too many calls can be a serious drag on your load time, so one of the simplest ways to improve your page speed is cutting down the number of elements you include.

Look at each piece of content on your page critically, then ask yourself: “Does this spark joy?” “Does this increase conversions?” If you don’t think there are pieces you can toss, try running an A/B test with a slimmed-down version of the page. The results might surprise you.

Bottom line: stick to the fundamentals of good landing page design and try to keep the number of elements (and thus HTTP requests) to a minimum.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We recommend that you keep things pretty lean, but we’d never remove content from your landing page. (Must resist… desire… to do best practices…) This is one optimization that you’ll have to tackle on your own.

Optimize Your Images

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

Once you’ve trimmed some elements from your page, you’ll want to optimize the content that made the cut. Poor image optimization is the most common reason for slow page loads, especially for mobile visitors. Fortunately, it’s also one of the easiest issues to fix.

These are some quick tips for shrinking your images and improving your page speed. The goal here should be getting images at least under 800kb, but the smaller we can make them, the better.

Resize your images

It’s easy to chuck a larger image onto your page and rely on your content management system (CMS) to compress it to the appropriate size, but it’ll still be loading at least some of those extra pixels on the back end, and your visitors are going to feel it in the load. When you add an image, make sure it’s the same dimensions that your page will be rendering it.*

*This doesn’t necessarily apply to Unbounce’s retina image support—read up on that here.

Choose the right file type

Most people don’t think too much about the format of the image they’re uploading, but it can have a dramatic effect on page performance. The file types you’re probably most familiar with are JPEG and PNG—and, yes, there are differences.

JPEG is a ‘lossy’ format, which means it’ll lose some data during compression. That typically gives you a smaller file, but it can come at the expense of visual fidelity. Generally, images with significant color variation (say, photographs) perform better as JPEGs, and any dip in quality can usually go undetected.

PNG is ‘lossless,’ so the image’s appearance won’t change when resized, but it tends to make for larger files if there’s significant color variation. PNG is ideal for simple images with defined shapes, like those with text. Saving PNGs in 8-bit (rather than 24-bit, which has a broader color palette) can help shave off some extra bites.

Here are some optimization tips for JPEG and PNG (and GIF, that villain) from Google itself.

Use compression tools

Before your weigh-in, it’s good to run images through a final round of compression. There are plenty of image compression tools on WordPress, as well as some free, standalone ones like TinyPNG. These shrinky gizmos offer a simple way to cut down your image sizes without braving the cursed labyrinth that is Adobe’s export settings. (Hey, I’m a words guy.)

Your takeaways here are:

Ensure your image dimensions match how they’ll actually be displayed

Use JPEG when a slight dip in visual fidelity isn’t the end of the world (like photography), but PNG when it is (images with text and sharp lines)

Compress images to keep the file size as tiny as possible

If you want to take a deeper dive into image optimization, we recommend that you check out this post from Search Engine Land, which goes into detail on making images smaller while keeping them beautiful.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We’ve got you covered. Unbounce’s Auto Image Optimizer shrinks your images as soon as they’re uploaded so you can focus on making the best landing page possible.

Host Your Videos Elsewhere

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

Why carry something yourself when you can make someone else carry it for you? That’s my motto for landing pages and life, and it’s why I’m no longer welcome on Unbounce’s company hiking trips.

Hosting videos on your own domain can be great for SEO purposes, but that’s not usually our goal with landing pages. We want everything to load in a flash and give our visitors the best chance to convert. Depending on your hosting solution, though, your videos might be slowing down your page speed, suffering from playback issues, and taking up an uncomfortable amount of server space.

Done properly, transferring videos to a third-party platform can shed some extra load time and help your pages render faster. Consider moving video content to Wistia, YouTube, or Vimeo, then using a light embed technique so that your videos only load heavier playback elements when your visitors actually click on them.

Building Pages in Unbounce? As a disclaimer: Using light embed codes with Unbounce (or any custom code, for that matter) will require some technical knowledge to implement and could, in rare cases, cause issues. Check out this Unbounce community post for more information.

Audit Your Hosting Solution

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

Loading speed isn’t just determined by what’s on your landing page. Your web host also has a major influence in how quickly your page rolls out to potential customers.

There are three common models for web hosting:

Shared hosting Generally the most affordable solution, shared hosting is when your website is hosted alongside other sites on a single web server. Everyone draws from common resources (like storage space and processing power), which means—you guessed it—you need to share.

Virtual private server (VPS) hosting This is essentially a mix of both shared and dedicated hosting. With VPS, your website still shares server space with others, but you’ll have dedicated resources that no one else can dip into. The result is more power and flexibility, but it tends to come with a higher price tag.

Dedicated hosting For those who’ve had a traumatic roommate experience (who hasn’t?), dedicated hosting means your website has the server all to itself. More resources, no sharing. That’s great if you’re heavy on digital content and get a ton of traffic, but dedicated hosting is also the most expensive option and requires the technical know-how to set up and maintain your server.

Low-volume websites can generally get by with the cost-effective shared solution, but once your traffic starts to rise, you might not be getting enough juice from your web host to deliver content quickly—and that’s when load times start to suffer. (Give this post from Search Engine Journal a read for a more comprehensive explanation.)

It’s also important to note that the whereabouts of your web server can have a significant impact on your page speed. If you’re not using a content delivery network (CDN; more on this below), you’ll want to make sure that traffic from foreign countries isn’t encountering too much latency.

Think your hosting solution might be impacting your page speed? Run your site through a server speed test like this one from Bitcatcha, and use WebPageTest or Pingdom to see how your quickly your landing page loads in other countries. Depending on the results, you might decide it’s time to upgrade your hosting plan (or change web hosts altogether).

Building Pages in Unbounce? You don’t have to worry about this one—Unbounce’s global hosting solution boasts 99.95% uptime and ensures that your landing pages always have the necessary resources to load super fast.

Implement a CDN

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

When your landing page gets a visitor, their web browser pings your server to get the content necessary to build out the page. Simple, right? Everyone downloads your website information from the same place, regardless of their location around the world. Well, that’s usually fine if the visitor is in or close to the country that your web server is located, but when they’re halfway around the globe, chances are they’re going to encounter some latency.

To avoid that, you should look into deploying a CDN, which caches your website across a network of data centers and proxy servers all over the planet. Say your own server is in the United States and someone from Lithuania is trying to visit your landing page. Instead of downloading your content from across the Atlantic, that visitor can pull a cached version from a server nearby.

Setting your website up with a CDN is pretty straightforward and—depending on your traffic—generally affordable. Here’s a list of some popular CDN providers from Mashable.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We’ve got five global data centers supporting the Unbounce CDN, which means your landing pages will load in a flash regardless of where they’re being accessed from.

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Intermediate Fixes

These next speed fixes are a little trickier, but they should be manageable for marketers with a little technical know-how. Still, a mistake here could mean actual damage to your landing page.

Our recommendation? Do some research, make a backup, and—if you can—consult briefly with a developer on your team. It never hurts to have an experienced colleague to turn to if you get in over your head.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We talk a lot about WordPress through this next section. If you’re using our plugin to publish Unbounce landing pages to a WordPress domain, some of these recommended speed fixes can actually cause technical issues. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us for clarification if you’re ever unsure.

Minify HTML, CSS, and JS

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 15 Minutes

All those lines of HTML, CSS, and JS code that make up your landing page? They’re packed with spaces, line breaks, and other bits of formatting that make it more legible and easier for us to interpret, but each makes your load time just an eensy bit slower—and the web browsers your visitors are using to render your page don’t particularly need them.

With minification, the goal is to cut out all of that extra junk and condense your code so that browsers can read it faster. Here’s an example snippet of Javascript code from Wikipedia:

var array = []; for (var i = 0; i < 20; i++) { array[i] = i; }

After minifying, that code would look something like this:

for(var a=[i=0];++i<20;a[i]=i);

There are plenty of free online tools that will do this for your landing page, like Minify Code, as well as a bunch of WordPress plugins. Be sure to check out this post from Elegant Themes, which is an awesome resource that dives into the many options at your disposal.

Building Pages in Unbounce? Do we minify? We practically invented minifying. (Editor’s note: We did not.) Unbounce compresses all of your code automatically, making your landing page as slim as can be. No coding your pages from scratch and no minifying that code in the background? We’re making this too easy for you.

Enable Browser Caching

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 15 Minutes

The goal with any landing page should be getting prospects to convert the first time they visit, but the reality is that not everyone will. Sometimes, visitors will need some time to think about it: they’ll bounce, do more research, check out some competitors, then come back to your original offer. Browser caching ensures that when they return, your page will load even faster—and that’ll make them more likely to convert.

Not sure if you’ve already got caching enabled? Before you start, run a quick caching check using a tool like this one from GiftOfSpeed.

If your site is built on WordPress, enabling caching is as easy as adding a plugin.* (WordPress is almost too easy, huh?) Check out this list of caching plugins, most of which include quick instructions for getting set up.

*If you’re publishing Unbounce pages to a WordPress domain, these caching recommendations could create big problems. Check with us first.

For those not on WordPress, enabling browser caching on your own is pretty simple if you’re willing to get your hands dirty. For example, on Apache web servers, it comes down to inserting a little bit of code into the .htaccess file on your web host or server: <IfModule mod_expires.c> ExpiresActive On ExpiresByType image/jpg “access 1 year” ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access 1 year” ExpiresByType image/gif “access 1 year” ExpiresByType image/png “access 1 year” ExpiresByType text/css “access 1 month” ExpiresByType text/html “access 1 month” ExpiresByType application/pdf “access 1 month” ExpiresByType text/x-javascript “access 1 month” ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash “access 1 month” ExpiresByType image/x-icon “access 1 year” ExpiresDefault “access 1 month” </IfModule>

This article from Varvy provides a great how-to, as does this one from WinningWP (which discusses enabling browser caching from a WordPress perspective but is applicable more broadly).

If all of this makes you nervous, there’s likely a simpler method for you to set up browser caching. Most web hosts will enable caching for you if you ask. Depending on your hosting solution, it might be as easy as making a phone call. (Although, now that I think about it, that might be more daunting for some of us.)

Building Pages in Unbounce? Seven-day browser caching is enabled on all Unbounce-built landing pages, so this is a speed fix you can comfortably skip. Maybe use this free time to treat yourself to some self-care? You’ve earned it.

Set Up GZIP Compression

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 15 Minutes

When a visitor reaches your landing page, their browser pings your web server to request the files that make up the page and the server transmits them back. Naturally, that process moves faster if the information being sent is compressed to be as small as possible. Here’s where GZIP compression comes in.

(You’ll want to check to see if GZIP compression is already enabled before you get started.)

As with browser caching, the difficulty of setting up GZIP compression is going to be determined by how your website was built. If you use WordPress, you’re in luck: many WordPress plugins will enable GZIP compression for you almost automatically. If you don’t use WordPress, well, we’re headed back into your server.

This article from GTmetrix provides a quick overview of the importance of GZIP compression and how to enable it. With Apache web servers, you’ll need to add this chunk of code to your .htaccess file. <IfModule mod_deflate.c> # Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml

# Remove browser bugs (only needed for really old browsers) BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html Header append Vary User-Agent </IfModule>

And again, if this is beyond your comfort zone, your web host will probably help you set up GZIP compression if you ask nicely.

Building Pages in Unbounce? You don’t have to ask us nicely, because we’ve already done it. All Unbounce landing pages are automatically compressed during data transfer. (But be nice to us anyway, alright?)

Kill Needless Scripts and Plugins

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

WordPress is wonderful in its simplicity. As we’ve seen throughout this article, page speed fixes that might require a front-end developer on a static website can often be achieved by simply installing a WordPress plugin. Want to enable browser caching? Boom, W3 Total Cache.* Need to minify your scripts? Pow, Autoptomize.* Developer, shmeveloper.

But because it’s so easy to add functionality through plugins, WordPress websites have a habit of collecting a lot of them—along with all the of the bits and bites of code that make them work. Those add up.

Take a look at the scripts and plugins you’ve added to your website and decide whether they’re essential to your visitor experience. If they’re not, junking them could help cut some extra seconds off of your load time. (And guess what? There’s a plugin for that.) You can also disable plugins one at a time, then retest your page speed to determine which ones are problematic.

*If you’re publishing Unbounce pages to a WordPress domain, these plugins in particular might start a fire.

Building Pages in Unbounce? This is more of WordPress fix, but it also applies to Unbounce customers that have inserted a bunch of custom scripts onto their landing pages. Learn how the Unbounce Script Manager helps you keep things tidy.

Convert Images to Sprites

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

If your landing page includes a series of similar-sized images (say, for a client logo bar), you can shorten your load time by combining them into an image sprite, then use CSS to display specific chunks of that sprite at a time. This post from WebFX provides a great step-by-step guide for creating CSS sprites.

Joining smaller images into a larger file might seem counterintuitive, but again, the idea here is to reduce the number of HTTP requests on your page and ultimately make it faster. Each individual image requires its own call—combining images into a single CSS sprite means your page only needs to make one.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We don’t build CSS sprites for you, but you can certainly use them on your Unbounce-built landing pages. Check out our documentation on custom JS and CSS with Unbounce.

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Hard Fixes

We’re into the scary stuff now.

These are fixes you should absolutely not attempt unless you know what you’re doing or you’ve consulted extensively with a front-end developer. (We even had one of the Unbounce devs fact-check this article, and we’ve never felt smaller.) Proceed with caution.

Remove Render-Blocking JS and CSS

Difficulty: Hard / Estimated Time: 45 Minutes

Those CSS and JS scripts that make your landing page beautiful and enable cool, dynamic functionality? They could be one of the major reasons that your page is loading so slowly. (Bad news for my flashing, neon visitor counter.)

When a web browser runs into CSS or JS in the head of your document, it’ll wait to download and process that content before continuing to render your page’s HTML. That might sound like a good thing from a user experience perspective—after all, we want people to see our landing page as it was intended—but it actually means that visitors can be left waiting on a blank screen while everything loads in the background.

To avoid this, we need to implement techniques for preventing render-blocking CSS and JS on our landing page. (Refer back to your Google PageSpeed Insights results to check if any scripts are slowing down your page load.)

Reduce render-blocking CSS

There are a couple of ways that we can neutralize render-blocking CSS. One option is to defer all CSS until after the HTML has loaded. That’ll certainly improve page speed, but it will also present non-styled content when the visitor first reaches our page. Not ideal.

The other, more preferable option is to defer most style rules until the HTML has been rendered, but inline the CSS necessary to correctly display content above the fold within the HTML. That way, visitors will see the properly-styled content as soon as they hit the page while the rest will load out of view. Pretty sneaky. This is a great tutorial using a real-life example from codeburst.io.

Another page speed opportunity for you here is combining your CSS files. By moving your style rules from several files to just one (or maybe two, tops), you can reduce the number of times that visitors need to ping your web server and improve your landing page load time. Here’s a good resource from GiftOfSpeed on combining and compressing you CSS scripts.

Eliminate render-blocking JS

Like CSS, JS scripts can prevent your landing page from rendering as quickly as you might like. We can avoid that by deploying the defer and async attributes. The former tells the browser to wait until your HTML is rendered before it begins pulling in JS scripts, while the latter asks that JS be downloaded simultaneously without interrupting the HTML download.

An important note is that not all JS scripts are equal: some are critical to the rendering of your page and need to be addressed right out of the gate, so they’ll have to stay at the top. Dareboost does a good job of explaining how to distinguish between critical and non-critical JS, as well as how to implement deferred and asynchronous loading.

Building Pages in Unbounce? Unbounce optimizes for most Google PageSpeed Insights recommendations, including the removal of render-blocking elements. That means you can skip this one.

Start Hand-Coding with AMP

Difficulty: Very Hard / Estimated Time: ∞ Hours

Alright, “∞ hours” is an overstatement, but implementing AMP is no small task. Developed by Google, the AMP project is an entirely new framework with which to build your web pages. The goal? Dramatically improve page speed, especially for mobile users.

AMP is made up of three core components: AMP HTML, AMP JS, and AMP Cache. That means you’ll need to learn new markup, as well as understand the framework well enough to get your landing pages validated and make sure they actually work.

We won’t get into the nitty-gritty of building with AMP here, but the AMP website has a bunch of resources (including tutorials) to help you get started.

Building Pages in Unbounce? No hand-coding AMP pages for you—Unbounce makes it easy to drag and drop together AMP experiences. Choose one of our AMP-optimized templates, load your content, get validated, and start publishing lightning-fast landing pages right away.

Improving your landing page speed can sound intimidating, but even small tweaks will make a big difference for your load times. Tackle the easy stuff first, then move onto more challenging fixes as you get comfortable. And above all, keep testing: seeing your improved speed results after each undertaking will give you the confidence and motivation to move forward.

Or, you know, just build with Unbounce. We automatically handle most of the speed fixes listed (or at least makes them super easy), which saves a ton of time. That means you can focus on what matters: getting more conversions and improving ROI.

from Digital https://unbounce.com/landing-pages/increase-landing-page-speed/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#digital marketing

0 notes

adambstingus · 5 years

Text

The NFL’s New VR Highlights Take Football to a Whole New Level

Deep in the second quarter of the New York Giants’ win over the Chicago Bears on November 20, Giants quarterback Eli Manning slunga short pass to running back Rashard Jennings, who was forced out of bounds at the 28 after a five-yard gain. Nothing about the play, which lasted all of six seconds, stood out as particularly noteworthy. Except for one thing: Safety Deon Bush and linebacker Danny Trevathan shoved Jennings out of bounds right in front of NextVRs bug-eyed sideline camera. Watching the play on a VR headset made you instinctively want to get out of the way. The “you-are-there” sensation was strong.

NextVR is all but ready to flip the switch on live football.

OK, time out. You’re rolling your eyes, with good reason. Video on aVR headset is usually pretty disappointing. The novelty ofwatching something from a cool virtual vantage pointerodes quickly. There’s a screen door effect when seeing pixels on a magnified screen, shatteringthe illusion of being there. The content typically lacks narrative, offering nothing to direct your attention or provide urgency or drama.

But NextVR’s remarkable work with the NFL and the NBA provides a virtual experience that is far more engaging and dramatic. The slick highlights packages they produce for the NFL are released after the games, but NextVR is uniquely equipped to do live VR video. The company uses the same crew, gear, and processes to broadcast one live NBA game each week. They useeight camera rigs, hopbetween camera angles, and include onscreen graphics and play-by-play announcers.

We aren’t talking 360 video, either. There’s no confusion about where to look, as NextVRs rigs use a 180-degree field of view to record only the action in front of them. The hardware is more 3-D camera than VR camera, with processing tricks that add depth and boost the sense ofrealism. Each double-barrel RED rig captures 6K video for each eye. That’s tens of millions more pixels than any headset can display now, but NextVR wants to future-proof its content.

The result represents the dawn of a new kind of VR video, an experience that truly combines the best parts of watching a game on TV and being in the stadium.

Monster Truck

Tim Moynihan

The on-field cameras each use a pair of super wide-angle 8mm lenses to send two fisheye views of the action to the production truck, where the producers watch it on the monitors. You’ll find several Gear VR headsets in the truck, but no one is wearing them during a game. They’re there just so the crew and on-air talent can give the NFL VR experience a spin before blasting it out to the masses later on.With the NBA, it just goes out live,” Earl says.

The barrier to live NFL coverage goes beyond inking deals. The execution is already as polished as anything you’ll see on TV, but NextVR is still feeling its way through some details of shooting sports. Something as simple as panning is a no-no, because it may make peoplesick. Zooming is also off-limits, as it chops off the field of view. Both limitations make it tough to capture fast breaks in the NBA and long bombs in the NFL. When switching between cameras, NextVR producers favor a slow fade between angles, often when the action slows down.

The company has optimized its NFL field coverage by mountingcameras under each crossbar, placing manned cameras on the sideline of each end zone, and having four camera operatorsroam the sidelines. The setup favors action in the red zone overplays between the 30s, where each team has its bench. “The hard part about doing football is that with the 8mm cameras, you need the action to come to you,” Earl says. It’s a bit easier with basketball, where most of the action happens in front of the NextVR camera under each hoop. Anything that happens, we have a great angle of it,” he says.

That said, NextVR is all but ready to flip the switch on live football. The crew essentially produces complete games already, they just don’t broadcast them.The reason we do the NFL highlights the way we do it is because we want it to be exactly the same, says VP of content Danny Keens. We dont want there to be any loss of quality, any loss of resolution, any of that stuff. Itd be easier to just piece that show together and record it bit by bit. But we go start to finish and do live graphics and replays in real-time.

3D + VR = OMFG

VR is only now moving into the mainstream, but NextVR has been at it for two years. What started as a simple one-camera setup at midcourt during an exhibition game evolved into the current multi-camera setup with all the fixins. Earlier thisyear, NextVR announced it would carrylive NBA gameseach Tuesday as part of NBA League Pass. It marked a huge step forward for virtual reality.

For the first time ever, we announced a production schedule, says company CEO Dave Cole. We had more than 500 hours of live VR production under our belt before the NBA deal, but they were all one-off productions. Thats not the type of thing you can get viewers to schedule. I liken it to going to Best Buy and buying a television and the salesperson saying, ‘Well, theres probably going to be a broadcaster for this device someday.

NextVR’s secret sauce is its3-D effects, which date toits origin in 2009 developing 3-D television transmission tech. The company’s video-compression technology shrinks files by removing redundancies between each rig’sleft camera and right camera. Because that process involves detecting the edges of objects in a scene, the same technology can create wireframe replicas of everything the camerasshoot. When the video is rendered in a VR headset, it overlays stereoscopic video on top of those wireframes, creating the illusion of volume. It’s a mix of video and video-game tech.

It sends a hugely impactful message to your brain that youre actually in this environment, Cole says. Right now, the mesh, the number of vertices in the wireframe is quite low. In the next generation camera, which is rolling out in the middle of the season for the NBA, we are quadrupling the resolution of that mesh. That sense of presence is what were amping up.

Hacking Your Memory

NextVR outpaces the VR competition with the quality of its tech and scale of its deals, but it’s already eager to refine the experience. We will have done our job right when people cant remember whether they actually went to the game or watched it on NextVR, Cole says. I think thats an achievable goal.

Crazy as it sounds, that actually could be an achievable goal. At least in part. My answer to whether or not that could be possible is … sort of, says Julia Shaw, a memory expert, criminal psychologist, and author ofThe Memory Illusion. Shaw hasn’t studiedVR’s effect on memory, but she has successfully implanted false memories into the brains of test subjects.Because our memories are unreliable, convincing VR experiences could fool our brains. But only to an extent.

“Reality is multi-sensory,” she says. “When youre looking at something, no matter how high-def it is, if you dont have things like proprioception, your sense of space, you dont have smells, you dont have taste, you dont have temperature. These are things that we generally rely upon as markers to let us know weve experienced something instead of just imagined it.

So if Cole is serious about taking NextVR to that level, he’ll have to figure out how to infuse the experience with a lot more sensory input. Things like smart thermostats synced to the action and stadium-smell simulators.

VRs Biggest Challenges

NextVR has some more important technical hurdles to clear first, but they likely won’t be barriers for long. You can only watch its programming on the Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream, but Cole hints you’ll see NextVR on PlayStation VR soon.1 And NextVR is talking with other sports leagues and entertainment companies about getting more content in the pipeline. Cole says 4k-capable phones will make the viewing experience that much better within the next year, and 5G connectivity will make accessing content easier on mobile devices.

NextVR

All of this begs the obvious question: Willviewers embraceVR as a first screen option for sports? Already, watching a game on NextVR is a better eyeball experience than watching it on TV. But here’s the thing: VR is a solitary pursuit, one that requires clamping a headset on. Watching sports is a social endeavor, one that revolves as much around the camaraderie of the experience as it does the game itself.

So there are compelling reasons to strap on a VR headset to watch a game, but it’ll likely only happen if you’re home alone. Duncan Stewart, director of technology research for Deloitte Canada, says the solitary viewing experience is just one mainstream adoption barrier. According to his research, a few trends are shaking out in these pioneer days of VR: The medium still appeals primarily to males, hard-core gamers, and those with deep pockets. Deloitte’s global surveys show that more than 95 percent of people dont own a VR device and arent interested in buying one.

“There are indeed some people who are interested enough in the VR perspective to watch sports and wear a device on their head that blocks out their wife or husband, kids, parents, friends, pets and smartphone for hours at a time,” Stewart says. “But not many.”

There are other impediments, not the least of which is VR’sillusion of immersion is shattered every time you need to use the bathroom or grab a snack. And then there’s the simple fact that watching a game isn’t as simple as flipping on the TV, popping open a beer, and flopping down on the couch. You’ve gotta hook up the gear, launch the app, and find the content. NextVR’s incredible videos may represent the future of VR, but sports fans may determine the future of NextVR.

1UPDATE 12/12/2016 at 5 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include information about NextVR’s recent launch on Google Daydream VR.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-nfls-new-vr-highlights-take-football-to-a-whole-new-level/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/182945578062

0 notes