#anyways it’s a playlist i started when i was like 11 and have added to/improved until now

[passiveagressivepoet]

you can pry my sleep playlist from my cold dead hands

[cavewretch]

updated apr 19 2024

welcome to earth! welcome to PHOTOSYNTH!

once upon a time in october 2022, i listened to a song called "the turn of a dream" by robert schroeder and imagined people in a space ship, en route to move (back) to earth. they've got two cats who are sitting on the dashboard panels of buttons and switches of the spaceship. there's a little bit of urgency, like they're on the run, but they're also a bit caught up in awe at the sight of earth.

visually there was a lot of messing with crt tvs like pushing through electricity and screens and static. more below the cut! feel free to ask me things about it :D

from that little song kernel i started having fun imagining what earth might look like in a distant future, and what the people would be like, and what their experiences might look like in a post climate-change-global-capital-collapse world. what could grow? in this project i'm also thinking a lot about technology- the sustainability and evolution of gadgets and gizmos over the last few decades and what consequences our excess causes.

what use can we get out of things that are old but still have useful parts or still function? what can we create with what's left over?

who gets left behind after the rich and powerful deem earth unlivable? what will they do to survive?

i have no idea what photosynth may come to be - perhaps animation? a web comic? i haven't decided! i'd like it to be a collaborative something someday! this is all a big sandbox i am stomping around in and constantly adding to ! i've drawn some characters a little and have brainstormed some scenes but i don't have something to be read yet. and i'm honestly perfectly content to let it stay that way for years . i hope it's something tangible in the world as a finished object in like. 10 years. i think that's a fair amount of time to give myself. (i have a pinterest board with 700+ images, an 11 hour playlist, unfinished sketches, an archival external hard drive, and a very chaotic notebook.)

anyway! lets ground ourselves a bit beyond abstract conception shall we!

on earth, the great emigration begins. earth has gotten severely dangerous for life, and Scientists have recently discovered the yellowstone volcano in the west of the american empire is rapidly getting close to eruption. they can't predict when exactly the volcano will blow, but they know it will mean certain destruction for much of the continent, and contribute to global climate shift. a volcanic winter/small ice age, at least. the governing bodies make some swift and grand decisions. space travel has improved enough that the upper class can access it when necessary. state-based spaceships are designated for the rich and powerful, because of course we need our government leaders where we go next, or else we'll be lost! mars exploration has developed enough that there is a station large enough for the federal branch of government to set up shop. able bodied manual laborers are organized by tech conglomerates across the country and are sent to work on building ZEXA, a man made base to start up this new ultimate civilization. any employee within the empire working in certain disciplines are given numbers and ships with certain number ranges are assigned for migration. the empire drops its borders, encouraging mass migration to the south and elsewhere in whatever way people can get access to. it doesn't assist the process beyond that.

an empire moves to mars, leaving a majority of its population behind.

yellowstone erupts. north america is largely uninhabitable. the globe's climate is significantly altered.

time moves. the largest settlement (Jovia) in the north american continent is established and is home to roughly [300k? 1 million? idk] people.

Zexa 5's Galactic Federation bombs Jovia, starting the interplanetary war. a little girl escapes the destruction. across an ocean, a pair of newlyweds gear up for battle. two continents over, a "research project" begins development. the war "ends."

occupation remains, and the pressure cooker is reaching fever pitch.....

lets meet some characters!!!!! :D

ROSE EYE, named for her pink heart shaped glasses that double as a sniper scope. also known as JEN, who once escaped the destruction of her home town.

Jen is reputable assassin, with skills in stealth and both long and close range combat. she got her code name after a factory whistle blowing turned into a company's collapse, which she only escaped because of the help of THORN.

THORN, named alongside rose eye for their partnership in rescuing factory employees and carrying out the attack on the company. she's dubbed thorn for her electrified blade weapon and her unique virus software .//th0Rn that gives her full access to multi level security systems. of course it helped she was a security guard at the factory...

also known as HANA. adept at engineering and spacecraft with a love for earth-bound air travel, hana is joyful and loves country music and happens to save her workplace crush who wears those pink glasses everywhere's ass, jumpstarting her criminal career and a high speed chase off-planet. next stop: earth!

on earth, twin boys are knee deep in the junkyards after school to scavenge for new materials. ADI is looking for electronics, AMIR is looking for anything he can fashion into useful clothing. amir is taller. not by much, but by enough that you should know. they've found an old pc with a series of oddly prophetic corrupted plain text files and jpegs. one file looks like some sort of schematic. they'll bring it home and scare their mother, reminding her of what killed their father.

both boys are 19, one sporting purple hair dye and the other a nose ring, for individuality. they're about to complete their foundational educations and choose their apprenticeships and mentors.

across an ocean or two, a galactic federation research facility enters its 21st year of operation. a man who's been fighting to escape it since its inception just might make it this time. in cairo, a pilot receives an order to target that facility.

IVAN has been a prisoner of a galactic federation human experiment facility since he was a child. he's been pushed and prodded in research of the "human limits of strength and survival". despite fighting his captors his whole life, he is what they wanted him to become: a deadly weapon. and he's about to be freed by a man who terrifies him in a different way.

MIGUEL grew up surrounded by rebels and pilots. after his parents were executed by the galactic federation he was raised by an old mechanic in cairo. covered in tattoos piercings and charisma, miguel fashions himself unknowable and invulnerable . with nothing to lose he carries out targeted attacks on galactic federation bases. he just received a mission order that will bring him back to an old friend and give him lives to protect and live for.

thank you for reading !!!! 🫶🫶🫶

[holidaywishes]

Can’t Keep It a Secret Forever

  Requested: 👍

  Summary/Request: hey! can you write an imagine where the reader is dating nick robertson for like a year and a half but the relationship is still a secret and the reader is a senior in high school maybe in atlanta or somewhere in the usa and their graduation is coming up and he surprises her there and some of her classmates take pictures of them and their relationship becomes public via the media the next day. then nick like posts a couple pictures of them confirming the relationship. thank you so much!!!

  Warning: Fluff but that’s it?

  Author’s Note: First, this is super short, not my favourite writing and a little different than the request but it’s kind of cute, so I’m not mad at it. Second, Look at that face! He’s adorable! However, he’s also a child (baby boy was born on September 11, 2001. So, that’s rough) and I’m almost 10 years older than he is so, therefore, I will not be writing smut for him. I’m sorry, I just can’t do it. If you request smut for him, I will have to pass. Anyway! I’m happy to write some fluffy stuff and I hope you enjoy this short little request!

  *EDIT* I’M SO SORRY GUYS! I realize now that the orginal GIF was not actually Nick Robertson so I’ve changed it. I was hoping to find a GIF of him not on the ice and in an interview so you could see his face but, alas, I couldn’t find one.

  masterlist

  the other masterlist

xx

  Nick and you had met as Juniors in high school, before he was drafted to the Maple Leafs. He was a shy guy, a little goofy, but sweet. You were part of the drama club to which your friends teased you endlessly about by saying you could never get enough drama in your life so you had to join a club for it, you’d laugh and shrug them off. But Nick never teased you, even if it was just for play. A year later, you had developed feelings for him, started a relationship with him and were basking in a state of teenage bliss but when the Toronto Maple Leafs came calling, he wanted to keep the relationship a secret.

  “You’re going to Toronto. You’re going to be almost 3,000 miles away from me but you don’t want us to be public?!” you yelled as he sighed in front of you, “I don’t understand! Why?!”

  “I just think it will easier. Just for a little bit, okay?” he answered

  “Easier? Easier for you. Nick, we’ve only been dating for like six months. I don’t want our relationship to fail before we have a chance to even really have one!”

  “It won’t!” he exclaimed, standing up suddenly to put his hands on your shoulders, “it won’t, baby. You just have to trust me. It won’t be for long.” He pulled you in for a hug and you hesitated for a moment before falling into him, letting go of a sigh you had been holding in. You went to the airport a couple weeks later to send him off with his parents who said they’d be meeting him in a couple days and you felt a sudden rush of sadness as you hugged him goodbye.

  “I don’t want you to go...” you whispered while he squeezed you tighter

  “I know,” he replied, kissing your cheek, “but I’ll see you soon okay?” He smiled at you before walking past the gate and toward security and his parents tapped you on the shoulder to lead you out of the airport. You went back to school and he went into Boot Camps and training with the team and you only ever saw him when he came back in the summer; even then, he’d try to spend as much time with his friends and keep you hidden away.

  “Nick this is exhausting,” you said when you finally got a moment alone with him, the two of you looking up at the stars as you sat on a blanket on the beach and listened to the waves crash onto the shore, “I want to be with you. I hate hiding us, I hate not being able to tell people where I’m going in case you told people where you were going. It’s been almost a year since you left and you said that this whole secret thing was only going to be for a little while. It’s been more than a little while...”

  “I have a chance at starting this year,” he replied, “Coach says I’ve really been improving.”

  “Babe, the season is already well underway. If you were going to start, you’d have started already.” He scoffed at your words and you smiled timidly at him, raising your eyebrows in defence

  “I could be put on a different line, a starting line. Isn’t that exciting?”

  “Why can’t we just tell people we’re dating?” you asked and he sighed

  “What happens if we tell people we’re dating and everyone makes comments about you? Start saying that you’re only dating me because I’m in the NHL?”

  “Then we’ll make it very obvious that we started dating before all of that” you argued

  “And if they don’t believe it?”

  “Then who cares?!” you pushed, “It’s our relationship, not theirs.”

  “I just think we have to play it safe.”

  “What about my graduation?”

  “What about it?”

  “Are you going to be there?”

  “I don’t know my schedule babe...”

  “I don’t graduate for like eight months.”

  “I will be there”

  “Will we be public by then?”

  “Maybe,” he said, “I don’t know. Let’s not worry about that right now. Look at how beautiful this night is. The cool, California breeze just drifting across us. The sound of the waves and a clear sky. It’s perfect.”

  “Mhm...” you hummed and he laughed, kissing your temple before turning back to look up at the stars.

xx

Nick’s P.O.V.

  You had finished your training camp with the Leafs and Keefe said he was really impressed with you. It was looking like you would have a real chance at starting a regular season game, when the statement came out:

"In light of ongoing developments resulting from the coronavirus, and after consulting with medical experts and convening a conference call of the Board of Governors, the National Hockey League is announcing today that it will pause the 2019-20 season beginning with tonight's games. We will continue to monitor all the appropriate medical advice, and we will encourage our players and other members of the NHL community to take all reasonable precautions -- including by self-quarantine, where appropriate. Our goal is to resume play as soon as it is appropriate and prudent, so that we will be able to complete the season and award the Stanley Cup. Until then, we thank NHL fans for your patience and hope you stay healthy.”

  It hit you like a glass door that you didn’t see and you weren’t sure how to feel. The only thing you could do was what everyone else was doing: self-isolate back home. On one hand, you were happy that you’d be able to spend time with your family and with (Y/N) but on the other hand, you hated that the season was cut short. When you landed in Arcadia, your first stop was to see your girlfriend to see how she was doing

  “Nick?” she said when she opened the door, shock covering her face, “what are you doing here?”

  “The season’s been postponed...” you answered

  “Right.. yeah, no. I heard that. I just meant here, here.”

  “I wanted to see you. I know this is your Senior year and I know how much it must suck to not have your Prom and the graduation ceremony...”

  “Yeah,” she said, stepping out of her house, “it’s a weird feeling to know that I won’t be going back to school on Monday or that all the work that I was preparing to do for SATs won’t really matter in a couple months.” You hugged her tightly when her head dropped

  “I’m sorry” was all you could muster but when she stepped back

  “I’m glad you’re here... but I’m confused...” she said, “we’re still not public...”

  “I know...” you replied, “but I wanted to spend time with you.” She smiled before inviting you inside. By the time her prom came around, you had set up the most cliché Prom theme you could think of; starry night. You covered the ceiling in glow in the dark stars, ordered card stock stars from Party City to hang from the ceiling, grabbed a few Christmas decorations from your parents garage that gave that “romantic” vibe that you were looking for and led a blind-folded (Y/N) into the room as “The Starry Night” by Dylan Saunders played. You marvelled at her in her dress before you took the blindfold off so she could look at the room in front of her.

  “Oh my god! Nicky...” she gasped, looking at all the details you’d put into the room, “this is amazing. How.. when did you do all this?”

  “I had some help from your parents” you laughed

  “Does anyone else know about this?” she asked hesitantly and you frowned before giving your response

  “No”

  “Oh...” she sighed

  “This is just for us.” You tried, taking her hand and leading her into the middle of the room to dance. She rested her head on your shoulder as the two of you swayed to the slow songs that shuffled on the Prom playlist you’d created. You took a few pictures of her, her parents took a few pictures of the two of you, she danced with her dad, you danced with her mom, her parents captured pictures of it all, it was a sweet night but you knew that not being able to share them with her friends or on her social media was upsetting her so you tried to think of the best time to really go public.

xx

  It was time to graduate. It didn’t feel like it was because your Principal had arranged for each of you to stand outside your houses while he rode by in his car and handed you your diplomas. But you still made it. You still graduated. Technically.

  “This is so weird. I was so looking forward to walking across the stage,” you sighed just as Nick walked through the door, “leaving this place behind and moving on with my life. But now it’s going to feel like I graduated on a technicality.”

  “Hey!” Nick shouted, forcing you to turn your body and the tassel on your cap to swing into your face, “don’t think like that! You’re brilliant. Your graduation may suck but you’re not graduating on a technicality. You worked hard for this.”

  “It’s just high school, Nicky...”

  “But he’s right, sweetheart,” your dad added, “you worked hard for this. You put in the effort and the time. This is not a technicality. Not even one little bit.” Nick smiled at how your dad agreed with him and you rolled your eyes at both of them.

  “Come here,” your mom directed, “everyone cuddle close for a picture.” You all did as she asked and you were surprised when Nick leaned in and kissed you on the cheek for the picture, “Alright, I think it’s time. You should get outside, (Y/N)”

  “Okay... I’m on my way...” you sighed, “to get my diploma... To graduate...”

  “Good luck!” your dad teased as you opened the door to walk outside, causing you to stick your tongue out at him. You were joined shortly by all of them, with your mom constantly taking pictures and Nick going live shortly before your Principal showed up with what looked like a camcorder strapped to the top of his car.

  “(Y/N) (Y/L/N)!” He yelled from his car and you laughed at the absurdity of this situation, “come grab your diploma!” You jogged lightly to the car, your heels clicking against the concrete and you grabbed your diploma, “Congratulations!” Your Principal said before whispering his apologies for the scenario

  “Thank you,” you replied, “it’s... memorable.” You laughed and he waved goodbye as you made your way up your driveway with your mom taking pictures and Nick still live, “guys, stop!”

  “We need records of this wondrous occasion” your mom joked and Nick rushed up to you, all smiles

  “YOU’VE DONE IT!” he shouted, making sure the camera could see the two of you together, before beginning an interview process, “you’ve graduated high school. How do you feel?”

  “The exact same.” you said plainly, a small smile on your face when you realized Nick hadn’t taken his arm back from around your shoulders

  “What are your plans now?!” he asked

  “I don’t know. I haven’t.. really thought about it”

  “Well...” he started, “what about your boyfriend? Are you going to celebrate with him?”

  “Nick, what are you doing?”

  “We can’t keep it a secret forever, can we?”

  “No.. are you sure?” He smiled as his eyes danced across your face before he kissed you gently

  “Of course I’m sure. I love you.” He said, cutting his live video there, kissing you more purposefully this time and you finally felt like you could breathe. You were finally allowed to spam your friends feeds with pictures of you and Nick, flooding your social media accounts with videos and posts and stories with the two of you; you were never happier than that. Being able to share your love for him with the people in your world was a wild feeling and one you would never give up for anything.

[dearophelia]

Lol duh. Gonna ask about Dropsonde.

I adore you. I’m gonna answer them all because I’m that person. Also includes 6-8 for @swaps55! Thank you both!! [dropsonde (singers in a lower choir remix)]

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

For the original? I think it was a half-baked scene that came to me while I was on vacation in Florida. I remember scribbling it down in a notebook and then going to town when I got back home. I threw a bunch of time-skips in there because, frankly, I didn’t want to write small children. I do not blame 2007 Sara for this. She was a wise human.

For the revamp? A cascading domino effect started in last October and resulted in my mental health going entirely sideways for eight solid months. Literally nothing was working to screw my head on straight again: not meds, not therapy, not yoga, not getting my sleep and food under control, literally nothing. I think it was around early June when I realized the hallucinations weren’t going away this time (and perhaps had never really left) and I hit the end of my rope. Luckily, my great pal Aly texted me out of the blue with the fact that she’d fallen face-first back down a Grey’s black hole. We got to talking about our various fics we’d both written, how nostalgic we were for them, and I re-opened the OneNote notebook I had for this. Started writing, didn’t look back.

I'm not gonna say that I’m stable again as a result (I’m really not), but I’ve written like 30k words in the last three weeks, which is the most I’ve written since August of last year, and it’s something to do and think about that isn’t pure doom and panic. It makes me happy, and makes me happy in a way that doesn’t include caveats or exceptions; there’s nothing else in my life right now that’s just happy. It’s helping.

2: What scene did you first put down?

For the original, it was the one at the beginning of (the original) chapter 2, where Addison’s finishing up Goodnight Moon for the nine-hundredth time. For the remix, it was the actual opener: where Addison finds someone else’s shoes in her apartment.

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

Later, when the snow has turned into rain and they've even managed a round three, Addison curls up against his chest, tangling their legs together. She smiles. She'd been using dead reckoning to make it out of her storms her entire life. Now she has a lighthouse.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

"Your storm is a natural disaster. It's chaotic and wild and unpredictable and often the only thing I can do is hang on. But that storm brought me you. That storm brought me love and a future I didn't see a path to." His fingers coast across her bare shoulders, mapping constellations out of freckles. "And if I'm the lighthouse in your storm, then I promise you to stay standing and lit, because I need you to know the way home from your storm, Ads. To me."

5: What part was hardest to write?

I remember the original sort of effortlessly flying out of my fingertips. What’s been challenging about the rewrite is filling in all the little gaps the original left; writing the spaces between the facts. Don’t get me wrong - that has been fun as hell, but also challenging because I have to remember the voices of these characters I haven’t checked in on in over a decade.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

IT’S MY WARM COMFY BLANKET UNIVERSE. It also...it does not have a plot. There are pieces of plot to it, but there’s not an overarching plot or anything. It’s not a mission, it’s not a rescue, it’s not anything that has plot-based structure. It’s just life. I hate plot, I hate it, it’s the worst. This lets me write shit in a world I like and not care about what happens next because life just be like that sometimes.

7: Where did the title come from?

2007 Sara was an idiot and really liked formatting her chaptered fics by snagging an album and making each chapter title a track on the album. Even if the album didn’t remotely fit (even better if it didn’t, because she thought she was such a musical snob. she was not. she was full of crap). “dropsonde” is an album by the trance group Biosphere (and I hate it. I think I hated it back then, too). It’s also a hurricane tracking tool. So that’s a weird legacy to have to work with.

The revamp’s remix title comes from Leonard Cohen, because 2020 Sara is a pretentious asshole and owning it. Book of Mercy 1: In a transition so delicate it cannot be marked, the court is established on beams of golden symmetry, and once again I am a singer in the lower choirs, born fifty years ago to raise my voice this high and no higher.

That line gives me so much life and hope: I don’t have to try to sing higher. I don’t have to reach for other octaves, I don’t have to try to shove myself into a space that isn’t Sara-shaped, and in fact I should not. Because I was born to sing in this Sara-shaped choir and it would be insulting to myself and to the creators to insinuate that this Sara-shaped choir was not made for me. The space you inhabit is holy because it is yours. As much a reminder for me as it is for the characters.

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

I don’t think I grabbed anything from actual reality? I may have. Especially in the original prequel/second part/whatever we’re calling Shenzhou, when I was grasping at straws for ideas and wrote a few really random scenes just to fill up space.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Not of the fic itself, but this Rachel Montgomery is definitely the same Rachel Montgomery in gonna set your flag on fire. 

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

Because it was 2007, I was writing fic instead of doing homework, and Addison/Alex was very much about to become a thing after being teased for a whole fucking season. Missed opportunities: the goddamn ship. I’m still mad.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

It’s fun. It makes me happy. And I don’t care about what anyone thinks about it - there are no expectations, I’m not trying to live up to “oh god I hope it’s good enough for so-and-so” (which, yknow, is bullshit anyway, but is how my brain was working on gonna set your flag on fire). It’s completely free from strings. So I can do what I want. Who cares. 

12: What do you like least about this fic?

It’s real fuckin’ long and I’m real fuckin’ long-winded. I’m about 30k in and Rachel’s not even one yet. Hot yikes.

But, on the plus side, as part of the “who gives a shit, do what you want” mentality, I’ve broken out of the “oh god I have to write the other side of this, I have to keep x topic going.” No, no I really don’t. It’s an Addison story, it’s always been an Addison story, I just didn’t realize that 13 years ago. It’s an Addison story and everyone else is window dressing that can come and go as the sun requires it.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

oh boy, here have an eight-hour playlist

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

plot is overrated. write what you want.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

I learned how much I’ve improved as a writer in 13 years. Part of this experiment was to shut down the “you’re not a good writer, you suck, no one likes you, everyone’s just tolerating you” voice that has plagued me for my entire life and got a lot louder at the end of last year because of Reasons. That voice is still trying really hard, but it doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when I can point to a scene I wrote in 2007 and then the exact same scene written in 2020 and see just how much better it is now.

[patricksilvrrozartistry]

Current Music Obsessions: October 1 - 16, 2018

Well. I'm obviously working on purging my watch later playlist because this list is LONG. So let's get started with the honorable mentions.

MaYaN - Saints Don't Die Progenie Terrestre Pura - Twisted Silhouette LVCI - Not Yours Suodeth - Gauja The Number Zero - Web of Truth Trail of Tears - Poisonous Tongues Harpyie - Berserker A Metaphor for Betrayal - Confess Rave the Reqviem - Are Yov Happy Now, Fidelio? Jem - Come On Closer Shadowrise - To Live and Die For Dust in Mind - This is the End MaYaN - Tornado of Thoughts (I Don't Think Therefore I Am) Dim7 - Spinecrawler Oudn - Chaos Ignea - Queen Dies Black Mirrors - Mind Shape Bif Naked - Lucky MaYaN - The Power Process Illuminata - Phoenix Infinite Tales - Innocent St. Evil BrightStorm - Vampire Setanera - Spettralia Michael Romeo - Djinn Bysantine - The Cicada Tree Lena Katina - Косы Victorius - Lazer Tooth Tiger Elyose - Psychosis feat. Mark Jansen (Epica, MaYaN) The White Swan - Pelvic Sorcery

And now for the MANY obsessions.

1. The Last Martyr - Into the Black

This a really great find on Spaceuntravel that really caught me by surprise. I'm so glad I decided to give this song a shot, because it's super great. I wasn't sold at first, but when homegirl started screaming I was totally on board. I'm definitely am gonna check out more from these guys.

2. Asphodelia - Cassandra

I found these guys through IG one day when the band/singer liked a post or followed me, so I decided to check them out. The song is fairly simple, but the impression it leaves is a strong one. Their singer has a really pretty voice and the video is so striking with the look she wears where she's sporting the contacts.

3. Zahna - Underneath

Ok, from now on, I'm gonna put Spaceuntravel at the beginning of my statements for any song from them since I keep finding such great jams from that channel. This is a really beautiful alternative metal track and I'm obsessed with the lead singer's voice. There's just something about it that I'm just over the moon about. And the song is pretty catchy too, so that definitely helps.

4. Dol Ammad - Force of Freedom

This song is my favorite off their new album. The middle in particular is absolutely everything to me. There's something about that one singer just softly singing those lines and the rhythm that just really gets me. It's such a simple song, but the production and execution make it the excellent track it is.

5. Lavinium/Levinia - Alluring Fear

After discovering Levinia, I decided to look more into them and found their bandcamp where I saw they had their first demo/EP of the same title when they were originally called Lavinium. This song is definitely one of my favorites off that demo and is an absolute powerhouse of a track. I can't wait for Levinia's debut EP, Liberation, to drop on Halloween. These guys have quickly become a band on my immediate radar, and the fact that they are a symphonic metal band from the States that are this good blows me away.

6. Leprous - Contaminate Me (live)

Thank you Facebook memories for rekindling my love for this ballbuster of a track. Ihsahn is a fucking beast. He really takes this song to the next level, especially on this live version. And Einar's voice is gorgeous as always. I really love the fact that him and I have similar vocal ranges.

7. MaYaN - The Flaming Rage of God

This is my favorite song off Dhyana. It's so dramatic and powerful. The choirs in the beginning are absolutely everything. The verses where Laura and the male singer (not sure if it's Henning or Adam) are singing are so epic and haunting. They harmonize together so well. The pacing of this song is so great and I love the solos. Definitely give this track a listen.

8. Battlelore - Journey to Undying Lands

Another song I rekindled my love for thanks to Facebook memories. Definitely one of my favorite early tracks from them and the video for it looks like a legit movie. It's so exciting to know that they're working on a new album after such a long hiatus.

9. The Anix - This Machine

This is the second single they've released and I'm so hyped now for their upcoming release. This song has so much energy behind it, but still has an ambience to it in the verses leading up to the chorus. I hope a lot the new album packs in a lot of energy like this and Fight the Future. I love the softer, ambient tracks, but these tracks really show off the singer's voice so well, and he's got a beautiful one.

10. Chthonic - Millennia's Faith Undone feat. HOCC

This is the latest single these guys have put out and it's an intense one. These guys are a symphonic-ish blackened death metal band from Taiwan that I've known of for a little while now, and this is my favorite song I've heard from them so far. The energy behind it and the female guest singer has a lovely voice that adds such a great dynamic to the song.

11. Alesti - Eye of the Storm feat. Diego Tekuo

Spaceuntravel. This track isn't that special, but the production and Diego's voice are wonderful. This is the second song I've heard him on (the other is The Hidden Truth by Against Myself, which shows off a lot of his vocal talents) and is nice to hear this kind of singing from him. He's got a nice voice.

12. Sick N' Beautiful - Megalomaniacal

I discovered these guys after finding the singer on IG one day and holy tits is this a fun song. I'm definitely am gonna check out their new album, The Art of Sex. It sounds like it'll be just as fun and wild as this song. I live for the sci-fi vibes of their look and the video is so much fun to along with how fun the song is. I love their singer's green hair and her look in the video is amazing.

13. Sirenia - Love Like Cyanide feat. Yannis Papadopoulos (Beast in Black)

I wasn't so sure how I felt about this new single of theirs at first, but it grew on me and became an obsession. It's a bit all over the place in experimenting with different sounds. You got some symphonic metal, gothic metal, power metal, black metal. It's a big melting pot of different stuff and oddly everything mesh well together. It's a definite improvement over the last album, I'll say that much.

14. Dead Can Dance - Sanvean (live)

My Facebook memories really gave me a lot of stuff to reminisce over. This live performance is absolutely divine. Lisa is an absolute goddess and she proves it with this performance. I'm so excited for the new album to come out.

15. Dark Sarah - Golden Moth

I wasn't too keen on listening to the new album since a lot of the singles have been pretty lack luster, but this song changed my mind. This song is exactly what I needed to hear from them. It's full of so much beauty and emotion. And don't get me started on how amazing and gorgeous the video is. I can't get enough of it.

16. Eliza Red - Still

I can't remember how exactly I found this guy, but I found a song of his and thought it was too short and found this song, which in my opinion is also too short. But that doesn't stop the fact that I absolutely love it. It's an atmospheric r&b track and his voice is so lovely. I'm definitely am gonna look more into him, even though all his songs are super short.

17. Soulextract - Cryosleep

Spaceuntravel. This song became an obsession for one possible reason only: SPACE SHIT. I love it when songs are about space. Hello, I'm Patrick and I'm a sci-fi buff who's obsessed with space and the universe. Anyways, the song itself is pretty simple, but the execution and the fact it's about space shit is what makes me love it so much.

18. Meg Myers - Numb

I found this song through an IG ad one day when browsing through stories and had to check it out immediately. It's a great alternative track that has a punk vibe to it. I'm really interested in checking out more from her and seeing just what else her music entails.

19. Soul Desire - From the Flames

This is one of my favorites off their debut EP. It's such a lovely song that really shows off their front woman's range and the beauty of her voice. It's much slower compared to the other songs, but that's what helps it to stand out.

20. Northward - Get What You Give

This project is looking like it's gonna be an amazing one. After listening to an interview Floor did recently, it turns out that this is going to be strictly a rock project, so no soprano moments (hopefully Nightwish will incorporate that aspect of her voice way more in the new album). I'm still hoping there will be some growls that will pop up here and there though. Anyways, this is a really fun track that has some groovy verses. She gets some good high notes in the chorus, especially the final one, which is always wonderful to hear from her.

21. Hydria - Enjoy Your Greed

This is a throwback track for me. The second verse randomly popped into my head one day and I wound up rekindling my love for this track. I really need to get back into these guys. They had a really great symphonic metal sound and Raquel's voice is so lovely and stands out next to a lot of singers in the genre.

22. Arcane Roots - Curtains

Found this song one day when I tuned into a Metal Ass Gaming stream on Twitch. Jake decided to play this album and I had to give this and a couple other songs a listen and I wound up falling madly in love with this one. This song is pure proof as to why I love prog so much. It starts out really ambient (like Sigur Ros level ambient) and slowly picks up pace and then jumps into some hard-hitting djenty progressive metal. It's such an amazing track and you bet your sweet ass I'm gonna check out more from them.

So yeah. A SUPER LONG list. I know. I can't guarantee that the next half of the month will have a super long list, but it just might. At least we got some really great jams out of this though.

[lera-thp]

85 Questions Tag

I was tagged by @calicokookie, thanks! (:

Rules: Answer these 85 statements about yourself, then tag 20 people.

Last…?

1. Drink ─  water

2. Phone call ─ a friend of mine who didn’t show up at the cinema in time xd

3. Text message ─ does whatsapp count? then my boyfriend c:

4. Song you listened to ─ Troye Sivan - Dance To This

5. Time you cried ─ woah... I don’t really know but I think when OMG NO I REMEMBER! when my friend told me that she managed to buy a vip ticket for bts for me *cries again*

Ever…?

6. Dated someone twice ─ no

7. Kissed someone and regretted it ─ well I cringe but regret? nope

8. Been cheated on ─ not that I know??? but who knows, right? :’D

9. Lost someone special ─ yes

10. Been depressed ─ yes and idk...yes

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up ─  never have and never will

12. Favourite colour ─ GREEN <3

13. Favourite colour ─ GREEN <3

14. Favourite colour ─ blue is nice too haha

In the last year have you…

15. Made new friends ─ yes

16. Fallen out of love ─ with myself? yes... with others? not one bit <3

17. Laughed until you cried ─ YEES?!?!

18. Found out someone was talking about you ─ yes

19. Met someone who changed you ─ yes

20. Found out who your friends are ─ actually idk tbh but there are some where I’m sure, yes <3

21. Kissed someone on your Facebook friends list ─  well... I’m kissing my boyfriend for almost 3 years now, SO YES :D but he’s just on the list tho because back then everyone added everyone???

General

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know irl ─ I actually almost only have friends that I at least know irl or went to my school, don’t use fb anymore anyway

23. Do you have any pets ─  yes, a fat chihuahua <3 <3 <3

24. Do you want to change your name ─ no

25. What did you do for your last birthday ─ bowling and making pizza with some friends lol

26. What time did you wake up today ─  around 8am but I read fanfics until 10

27. What were you doing at midnight last night ─  ...writing my own fanfic xd

28. What is something you can’t wait for ─ actually this whole year... I will travel with my parents, then with my boyfriend and then go the bts concert??? what did I do to deserve this????

30. What are you listening to right now ─ eh lol Micheal Jackson - Smooth Criminal

31. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom ─ yeah 

32. Something that’s getting on your nerves ─ annoying people, my never ending headaches

33. Most visited website ─  youtube, tumblr, ao3

34. Hair colour ─ blonde

35. Long or short hair ─ short but it’s getting longer c:

36. Do you have a crush on someone ─ I’m in love with my boyfriend (and bts lol jk..or not)

37. What do you like about yourself ─  bad timing to ask... rn nothing 

38. Want any piercings? ─ no

39. Blood type ─ I think B

40. Nicknames ─ Lea or Lera

41. Relationship status ─ in a happy relationship hehe

42. Zodiac ─  Capricorn

43. Pronouns ─ She/her

44. Fave TV shows ─ DETECTIVE CONAN

45. Tattoos ─ none

46. Right or left handed ─ right

47. Ever had surgery ─ well just my wisdom teeth removal

48. Piercings ─ no

49. Sport ─ just going to the gym and dancing from time to time

50. Vacation ─  this year Croatia with my parents and then Seoul and Tokyo with my boyfriend <3

51. Trainers ─ ???

More general

52. Eating ─ love korean and japanese food <3 

53. Drinking ─ water... and rarely vanilla coke (damn good)

54. I’m about to watch ─  idk

55. Waiting for ─ me being productive

56. Want ─ to improve my drawing skills, my korean, start editing videos again, making some playlists, learning dances, improve my russian

57. Get married ─ maybe in a few years

58. Career ─ idk kinda decided to become an artist... visual designer would be awesome, let’s see ~

Which is better

59. Hugs or kisses ─  hugs

60. Lips or eyes ─ eyes

61. Shorter or taller ─ taller

62. Older or younger ─ I don’t care

63. Nice arms or stomach ─ doesn’t matter 

64. Hookup or relationship ─ relationship lol?

65. Troublemaker or hesitant ─ hesitant

Have you ever

66. Kissed a stranger ─ no

67. Drank hard liquor ─ yes and I loved it lol

68. Lost glasses ─ no but I broke mine once (sat on them)

69. Turned someone down ─ yes

70. Sex on first date ─ NO T_T 

71. Broken someone’s heart ─ unfortunately yes? but not on purpose, I’m still sorry until now

72. Had your heart broken ─ BIG FAT YES... from many people around me actually but everything’s better now <3

73. Been arrested ─ no

74. Cried when someone died ─ yes

75. Fallen for a friend ─ yes lol my now boyfriend hahaha

Do you believe in…?

76. Yourself ─ a little bit? 

77. Miracles ─ yes... because I have a fucking vip ticket for bts LIKE WTF this can only be a miracle

78. Love at first sight ─ YES

79. Santa Claus ─ wtf

80. Kiss on a first date ─ well, it’s not impossible

81. Angels ─ no

Other

82. Best friend’s name ─ don’t want to post their names but they know it <3

83. Eye colour ─ grey/blue/green idek

84. Favourite Movie ─ GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES 

85. Favourite Actor  ─ not really into actors

I’ll tag only @kouhasbuttcheek haha (: 

[musicgoonmail]

Doomed

In This Edition

In this week's edition, I share thoughts on recording video content for Sunday School, what's new with my book reviews, church social media, new podcast episodes for SOLA Network, and what's coming soon across my creative projects - including my first book giveaway on Instagram!

We'll be celebrating Mother's Day by going on a trip to get Cha for Tea - Jess' favorite boba spot. When thinking about my own relationship with my mom - I would say that it is not a typical relationship. But I thank God for her continued presence in my life. I know Mother's Day can be quite challenging for some. I appreciate you for reading my newsletter -- please let me know how I can be praying for you.

My soul longs for the courts of the Lord: What should I feel when when I can’t go to church?

Book Reviews and My First Giveaway!

Walnut Commentary: Dealing with Disappointment with Pastor Hanley Liu

SOLA Network Podcast: Cruel Summer with Hannah Chao

Playlists

Weekend Throwbacks

Extended Play

Lightning Links

Coming Soon

Weekly Review

My soul longs for the courts of the Lord: What should I feel when when I can’t go to church?

I delivered my Sunday School devotion from Psalm 84 to my high school students LIVE on Zoom last weekend, and you can watch the recorded video on YouTube. Here is my main point: Trust in Jesus, the true and better temple, and base your hope in our heavenly home.

It was hard for me to be objective with my own evaluation after giving the lesson. My co-teachers were generous and kind in their feedback. I hope to get better at delivering content via video, so I am definitely open to hearing suggestions from my newsletter readers. Simply reply to this email and let me know your thoughts.

Book Reviews and My First Giveaway!

This week I reviewed 4 books and were a great display of the different books I receive. God’s Glory Revealed in Christ (edited by Denny Burk, James M. Hamilton Jr., and Brian Vickers) is an academic Festschrift, Gentle and Lowly (by Dane C. Ortlund) reads like a devotional, The Book of Ecclesiastes (by Alabaster) is magazine-style book, and Disruptive Witness (by Alan Noble) is a relevant look at Christian living.

I am happy to let you be the first to know that I will be doing my first book giveaway on my Instagram @diveindigdeep. I am partnering with Intervarsity Press, and we will be giving away 3 copies of Disruptive Witness by Alan Noble. I'll share more about how this came about in our next newsletter, but for now be sure to follow and be ready on Monday morning to enter!

Walnut Commentary: Dealing with Disappointment with Pastor Hanley Liu

For the first time, Pastor Hanley Hanley and I record the Walnut Commentary podcast LIVE on Zoom. You can watch the video recording on YouTube. After clearing the air about an argument we had earlier this year, Pastor Hanley answers 3 listener questions: 1. What kind of encouragement does The Bible offer to those who have to deal with disappointment and/or sadness for present or upcoming events directly affected by the shelter in place order? 2. How did this COVID-19 crisis change FCBC? 3. A local pastor has asked pastors to pray about opening doors to church on May 31st. What are your thoughts?

We had 3 reasons for launching the LIVE podcast. First, offering the live option works for us because we can do it easily. We've built up a rhythm that works in our conversations. Second, it works in Pastor Hanley's favor because he's making himself available to our congregation. I think providing a known avenue for Q and A with your pastor is a good thing to have at our church. Finally, if we're going to record a podcast anyways -- it doesn't hurt us to do it LIVE. I still have the content ready to be published for anyone that wants to watch it on-demand. So we're going to keep going and just have some fun with it!

SOLA Network Podcast: Cruel Summer with Hannah Chao

This special episode was recorded on Zoom with SOLA Network editor Hannah Chao. She gives an update on SOLA Digital, discusses our top 5 articles so far in 2020, and shares what she's been working on creatively. Watch on YouTube. Listen on Spotify or Podcasts.

I'm very happy that SOLA Network is open to providing more video content - and I'm happy to contribute with the podcast. While the people at my church know who I am, it's a different feeling showing my face on an outside ministry. I hope to roll with the punches, learn, and improve as we go along.

Playlists

SOLA Network allowed me the opportunity to interview a Korean-American hip-hop artist named Uzuhan, so I did a deep-dive into his catalog. I love everything about the song Doomed. The guest vocals by vlogger Nikki Phillippi are outstanding.

I added the track to my MUSICGOON playlist this week and it will have a stable spot on our TGIF playlist for SOLA Network. Also, there's a fun music video to go with the song - watch it on YouTube.

MUSICGOON: 10 songs I enjoyed this week.

SVRGNLA: Jess and I love these songs.

ETJ: Music that inspires my band.

DIDD: A crowd-sourced worship playlist.

TGIF: Crowd-sourced for SOLA Network.

This is FCBC Walnut: Sunday setlists.

Weekend Throwbacks

Mother’s Day reminds us about when we were waiting for adoption. We have a special burden for those who are waiting. Jess wrote an article almost two years ago about her own struggles and how she felt like An Ugly Waiting Mom.

I plan to share a trio of throwback articles from my own blog this weekend on social media related to Mother's Day. I hope they can be a small and special encouragement to you.

God is Working in Your Waiting

My Mom Learns By Writing

Worth the Wait

Extended Play

This section of the newsletter is starting to turn into a Disney+ love letter. We're watching the Disney Channel series I Didn't Do It, and we're starting the new original series Prop Culture - a documentary series that reunites iconic Disney movie props with the filmmakers, actors, and crew who created and used them in some of Disney's most beloved films.

The article that impacted me the most this week was Pandemic Priorities for Church Planters by Tyler St. Clair for The Gospel Coalition. Here is the stinger: "Our churches need fully engaged and compassionate shepherds, not just spiritual content providers.” As the social media officer for my church, this is something I need to take into consideration.

Throwback: You Love Music Ministry More Than God If…

Movie: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

TV: Prop Culture

Article: Pandemic Priorities for Church Planters

Book: Disruptive Witness by Alan Noble

Song: Doomed by Uzuhan

Lightning Links

“Asian Americans” premieres on PBS on May 11, 2020

Spotify Launches New Campaign to Celebrate Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month

How the Air Jordan 1 Became the Sneaker King

The J.Crew Bankruptcy Has Exposed A Hard Truth About The Influencer Economy

Coming Soon

My 40-minute video interview with Uzuhan will be published next week. I felt like this one really challenged and sharpened my interviewing skills, and it was great to talk to an artist with so much experience. Here is the early YouTube link - let me know what you think!

Pastor Hanley Liu and I will be recording another LIVE episode of our podcast, Walnut Commentary. Join us on Zoom, this Thursday, May 14, from 9:00 - 9:30 PM. You can ask questions and submit prayer requests LIVE in the chat or simply reply to this email. All are welcome!

Weekly Review

SOLA: The Cancer of Racism amid COVID-19 / Make Sure Your Members Are Christians, Not Just Immigrants / Pandemic Priorities for Church Planters

Thank God it’s Friday: COVID-19 & The Church / Free eBook from the 9Marks Church Questions series / How a Plurality of Elders Shines in a Pandemic / Columns from Tabletalk Magazine for May 2020

Book Review: Disruptive Witness by Alan Noble

Book Review: The Book of Ecclesiastes by Alabaster

Book Review: Gentle and Lowly by Dane C. Ortlund

Book Review: God’s Glory Revealed in Christ

Walnut Notes: My soul longs for the courts of the Lord: What should I feel when when I can’t go to church?

Recommended Reading: The Cancer of Racism amid COVID-19 / When Being Heroic Means Staying Home / Zacchaeus: The Sinner Who Was Seen / Finding My Neediness in Postpartum Hours, Days, and Weeks

[evanvanness]

Annotated edition, Week in Ethereum News, March 21, 2020 issue

Shill alert: Gitcoin’s 250k in matching grants is live.  My grant is here.  If you give because you particularly want the annotated edition to continue, could you add .11 to whatever you give?  eg, 1.11 DAI or .11 ETH or .01011 ETH.  The previous round went great but tracking what people like is hard.  

The $250k includes $100k for tech, 50k for media, and 100k for public health, mostly related to covid.  I’m curious as to how this goes - I find it very hard to evaluate the public health proposals, whereas Eth proposals are easy for me to evaluate.  I mostly know the people, I know the ideas, etc.  None of that is true for the public health category.   There’s an opportunity for someone knowledgeable to (anonmously?) evaluate all the applicants and shape what gets funded.  

Eth1

Latest core devs call. Tim Beiko’s notes.

Discussions (non-exhaustive list) about EIP inclusions in next hard fork: eip2537 (BLS12-381 curve precompile) final, so we can have eth2 light clients on eth1. eip2456 timestamp for scheduling instead of block number, eip2542 vs ungas, eip2046 reducing gas cost for static calls, and eip1962 generalized precompile

Geth v1.9.12 – eth_call no longer defaults to first account

Merry Go Round – an idea for syncing state, a la Bittorrent

Lots of talk in the core devs call about all the different EIPs being evaluated for the next fork.  

In some ways this week is a synopsis of what’s happening at the protocol layer: people are working on the things for the next fork and arguing over what should go in, as well as what is ready to go in.  The Geth team are chugging along keeping the majority of the network humming, and there is research and ideas being passed around about how to get the current Ethereum mainnet to be stateless.

Vitalik’s long-term roadmap below also does a good job of explaining the main things being worked on in eth1.   I wasn’t exactly sure where to put it, probably incorrectly chose to put it in eth2 since so many things are long-term.

One interesting thing to note is that this is Vitalik’s “personal” vision.  Of course most of it is not controversial, but he just did this by himself.  Does it mean that it is Ethereum’s roadmap?  No.  It means that Vitalik came up with it at some point and decided to publish it - it does not necessarily reflect what everyone thinks.  He didn’t build consensus, he just published what he was seeing on the day he wrote it down.  

I noticed plenty of misinformation about Vitalik’s roadmap, as if none of this will happen for a decade.  Quite the opposite is true: the top 2/3 of the page is being worked on right now.  The Beacon Chain of eth2 is still set to launch in the next few months. 

The bottom third of the graphic is much more speculative.  Polynomial commitments instead of state roots?  That just got published last week, that’s likely years away.   When CBC Casper?  I’m not sure but it’s not soon and the transition is far from clear - to me, anyway.  Perhaps Vlad would give you a different answer.

Eth2

Danny Ryan’s Eth2 update

Latest what’s new in Eth2

Prysmatic client update – stable testnet for a month (but to be rebooted to current spec), surround vote slashing

Tutorial to run your own Lighthouse testnet

Vitalik’s personal long-term ETH roadmap, beyond eth2

Mikhail Kalinin’s writeup of his eth1<>eth2 bridge idea

Sensor fusion for BFT clock sync. Alex Vlasov’s research on hardening timestamps

State transition in Eth2 explainer from Nethermind’s Sly Gryphon

How Eth2 improves on Eth1’s weaknesses from Prysmatic’s Ivan Martinez

Gitcoin playlist of short eth2 explainer videos

I know probably no one else sees the order of things when I try to order things properly.  So here’s who it went: Danny’s update was high-level.  Ben’s was a bit more in the weeds.  Even further into the weeds is client update and “run your own testnet node.”  Then we got into Vitalik’s roadmap, which bridged the current eth2 with the future work.   So then we got writeups of research like eth1/eth2 merge, hardening timestaps, before getting into a few explainers that were a bit more for broader audience.

The ordering flowed perfectly in my mind, but probably only in mine!

Layer2

Why iden3 is using zk-rollup for universal identities

Having been using Loopring’s exchange running on zk-rollup, gotta say: it’s a great experience.  It’s like using a centralized exchange, only it’s a dex.

Stuff for developers

Solidity v0.5.17 (last?) release of 0.5.x (since 0.6 is out) disallowing overriding of private functions

TenderlyPro released – simulate txs, advanced analytics, debugging

Debugging transactions with Buidler and Truffle

Subspace v2, much easier to track events in React.

A demo on observing Defi with Subspace

svm: Solidity version manager

Choose how many IPFS replications you want pinned in each region with Pinata

Austin Griffith video on gas limits and gas prices

Intro to Eth for Python devs using web3py

Compare Eth API performance with the Versus tool

Tutorial on Ethereum RPCs, methods and calls in Infura

Mahesh Murthy updated his famous “Full Stack Hello World Voting Ethereum Dapp Tutorial” to use current libraries

Guide to building a margin trading platform on 0x

A quick start guide for devs to borrowing assets from Compound

Solidity went back to the v0.5 series to fix a bug that not everyone agrees is a bug!

Meanwhile, lots of interesting tools and tutorials this week, I suppose they all speak for themselves.  I thought it was neat that Infura released a tool to let you compare API performance.  Nice little bit of subtle bragging.

Ecosystem

A taxonomy of the advantages/disadvantages of different types of Eth wallets

How do we better onboard newcomers to Ethereum?

Custom text records on ENS

Onboarding newcomers is something I’ve been thinking about lately, and was tangential to my EthCC talk, which that post references.   Community has decentralized, which is good, but also poses some challenges.  A good portion of people who think of themselves as “Eth community” get their news from publications which are outright clickbait or have historically not done a very good job at ascertaining facts.  Still churning over this one, should probably turn some of my talk into a series of blog posts myself.

Someone at EthCC told me that they summarized my talk as “Make r/ethereum great again,” which is fair.  Yet while I continue to put a decent amount of time into r/ethereum, it’s not crystal clear whether we should try to revive it to be the main community discussion point.  For one thing, the existing rule is that it’s English-only, which feels unfair, but perhaps necessary for moderation purposes.  Can Reddit be the main ecosystem gathering point?  Do we need new tools?  Should they be web3-friendly sites, or should we keep Reddit as something that new people can find?  

Enterprise

Baseline Protocol is now open source, a common system of record between enterprises

“blockchain will do, for networks of companies and business ecosystems, what ERP did for the single enterprise” – Paul Brody, Cornell Blockchain interview

Resolving key considerations for blockchain connectivity with PegaSys Orchestrate

Hyperledger Besu v1.4.1

First public meeting of EEA’s mainnet working group scheduled for April 3

EY and Brody have made a big bet on mainnet, and it appears to be paying off.   In his interview, he framed the competition as between public mainnet and private chains, as EY is far ahead in expertise of using mainnet.  

It was also super interesting to get some of the backstory that led to the IBM/Samsung washing machine in 2014.

Governance, DAOs, and standards

Technical overview of Vocdoni’s anonymous voting system

The two token structure of SingularDTV’s SnglsDAO

Application layer

USDC added as collateral for Maker to help restore DAI to 1:1 parity with USDC and more Dai liquidity in liquidation auctions and MKR auctions. In Maker parlance, liquidation auctions are flips, and MKR auctions to cover system deficit are flops

flops.live to track the MKR auctions

Backstop syndicate is live. Pool your DAI to buy MKR at a favorable price, if an auction should drop that low

NexusMutual declined claims from Maker liquidated auctions since smart contract cover doesn’t include the risk that only one bot bids on the auction

DeFiSaver and liquidated auctions, the oracle delay was a problem but did 12500 ETH worth of Aave flash loan volume over 4000 transactions

Also check out Covalent if you need advanced notification as a user

Balancer’s 80/20 liquidity pools

Making requests on ErasureBay

OpenLaw: smart clauses for digital legal agreements

Depending on how you count, DeFi was 5 or 7 out of 9 bullet points.  That’s my running tracker that I like to occasionally check on.

Backstop was a very cool community effort.  Love to see that people get together to make sure the system functions - and they were also incentivized to do so.  

Tokens/Business/Regulation

Microsponsors: mint and auction your time as NFTs on a 0x market

Making sense of synthetic assets on Ethereum

Ryan Sean Adams on Covid-19 and crypto

Capital markets meltdown signals the birth of DeFi

Jonathan Joseph’s piece on how Black Thursday is the beginning of the DeFi area would have made the #Mostclicked if I’d tweeted it out just a bit later. 

General

AZTEC’s Plookup tables for faster SNARK verification of digital signatures

Using machine learning classifiers and SNARKs to detect improper video transcoding in Livepeer

Benchmarking performance of Rescue and Poseidon hash functions vs MiMC

ICL paper says bZx flash loan attackers left money on the table

NYT’s Nathaniel Popper reports on how the lead dev of Venezuela’s Petro scam got screwed

The NYT on how the Venezuelan kleptocrats screwed the dev is the epitome of something-we-all-saw-coming, which you already knew if you’ve read the newsletter for a long time.  I got criticism from a bunch of different corners (”oh that’s because you’re an American,” “you can’t say that, people will think it represents us,” etc) for calling the Petro a scam when it was announced, and I ignored it.  I don’t know why you got into this space, but I didn’t get into it to help kleptocrat leftist authoritarians.  

Meanwhile, lots of cool stuff in SNARKs, including in Livepeer about how they might be able to detect improper transcoding.  

Finally, Cristian Espinoza translated last week’s annotated edition into Spanish, which to my knowledge is the first time that the annotated edition has been translated.  Very cool, and support his Gitcoin grant for more translations!

I’ll add the #mostclicked here.  Amusingly I had some maxis spreading more lies about me this week because my tweets auto-delete.  So here’s a screenshot since that’s more durable than linking to a tweet

[tanmath3-blog]

Influenced by Stephen King and Rod Serling, Sean Seebach has written three books: A Looking in View, Autumn Dark and Our Monsters Are Real: The Pig Man. When Sean isn’t writing or managing a wonderful barbecue joint with amazing people, he enjoys reading, cooking, and listening to rock n’ roll. He currently lives in Ohio with his wife, daughter, and son.

  Please help me welcome Sean Seebach to Roadie Notes……..

  1. How old were you when you first wrote your first story? I was probably in elementary school. I created a comic book with some “cool dude” who just did “cool things”. Cool things being riding a skateboard and hitting home runs, things like that. The first story was one called Blue Collar Diesel which I later named The Lake Shimmers. It’s terrible. I wrote that when I was 34. So I took the title Blue Collar Diesel and wrote a novella that better suited the title. It’s in my collection A Looking In View.

2. How many books have you written? I have written three books: Our Monster Are Real: The Pig Man, Autumn Dark, and A Looking In View.

3. Anything you won’t write about? Probably not. I tend to stick to what is called Quiet Horror. Nothing too graphic or obscene. That’s not really by choice. The story is the boss. I just try to transcribe what’s happening in my head the best I can.

4. Tell me about you. Age (if you don’t mind answering), married, kids, do you have another job etc… I was born in Lancaster, PA in 1980, moved to Columbus, OH around ’82. It wasn’t the best part of town, so I wasn’t allowed to leave the yard. At the time it was a bummer. Later on I realized being confined to just the front and back yard forced me to use my imagination. I could do (and be) whatever I wanted: a spy, a ninja, a jungle warrior, whatever. Then in 1988 I moved to Lithopolis, Ohio, population around 600 people. There, I could explore the woods and creeks, ride my bike, and go to The Wagnalls Memorial Library, which still stands and became the cornerstone for my development as a reader. I did my first book signing there in May of this year. It was surreal. I am married to a wonderful wife who supports me in every aspect of life. We have a baby girl and a son who just turned 2. I work as a restaurant manager by day/night, depending on my work schedule. Next to writing, cooking and working with fun people is one of my favorite things to do. I’m a very fortunate man.

5. What’s your favorite book you have written? I should probably say Autumn Dark. That book has gotten the best response from readers. But, in truth, because The Pig Man was the first it will always be special to me. I love the story, but it isn’t written as well as the others. Which to me is a good thing because it shows that I’m improving.

6. Who or what inspired you to write? I don’t really know who or what inspired me to write. I think it chose me. I had a desire to write in my mid-20’s but I didn’t have the courage to do it. I thought you were either hand-picked by God or were chosen by teachers at a young age. Maybe it was writer, director, screen writer, producer, and occasional actor Brian Koppelman. I found him on Twitter shortly after I gave up drinking three years ago. He had posted a series of Vines on his account. Vine was a service that featured 6 second video loops. Brian was giving people permission to create in the videos he made. I looked him up, saw his credentials (Rounders, Ocean’s 13, Solitary Man, among many others) and thought “Now, here’s someone who’s done amazing things and is telling people to go out and do it!” There are many videos and books out there that will say you must be some sort of special intellectual to be an artist. Those people are wrong and most are full of themselves, are bitter, and most haven’t accomplished much. Brian had. Following him then led me to The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I was fortunate enough to have support in the beginning. Stephen King tweeted that he had a new story called A Death in The New Yorker and asked folks to comment on it. It was on their site and free to read. I thought, “Oh boy, who has the balls to critique it?” So I scrolled through the Twitter comments. There I found someone shamelessly self-promoting herself with a story she wrote called Alive. I read it and loved it. That person was Meagan Smith who then wrote as M.J. Pack. I reached out to her and we became fast friends. Shortly after she was hired on at Thought Catalog, an online publishing magazine. She asked to read my stuff. I sent her a cannibalistic story called The Best I Ever Had. She liked it and wanted to publish it. That gave me the confidence to crank out more stories. I’ve been writing regularly ever since. I owe her a great deal. She was kind of enough to write the Foreword for Autumn Dark which I’m very proud of. I’d like to collaborate with her one day. She’s a fierce talent. Also, during that time, author Tom Callahan befriended me. I reached out to him after reading his wonderful story called The Soldier, The Dancer, and All That Glitters from Dark City Lights, an anthology put together by the great American crime fiction author Lawrence Block. Tom and I emailed back and forth a lot. He read my stuff and encouraged me to write, write, write! He gave me advice and recommended a slew of books about writing to read. I owe him a great deal. And I continue to find support to this day. Author Lincoln Cole and I have become close over the years and he’s helped me in many ways. From creating a website to building a mailing list to formatting my books for self-publishing to finding cover artist (and author) M.N. Arzu to promotional tactics. He’s a good man and I also owe him a great deal. Just recently I did an interview with author Armand Rosamilia , also owner of Project Entertainment Network, for the Armcast Podcast. I also was invited in a flash fiction contest along with authors Stephen Kozeniewski, Gabino Iglesias, and Justin Bienvenue. Three big names in the horror community. Book reviewer David Spell has been in my corner since day one and I had the fortunate opportunity to meet him in Naperville, IL during Stephen and Owen King’s tour stop for Sleeping Beauties. And, now, this interview. Thank you, Becky! I’d also like to mention that since I’ve begun listening (and advertising) on The Horror Show with Brian Keene, a podcast dedicated to the genre, I’ve met all kinds of great people: readers and authors alike. It’s opened the door to many authors I was ignorant to before. It’s also highly entertaining. But none of this would be happening without the support of my wife. She’s my first reader, my Annie Wilkes, and I still like to make her laugh and cringe, and when I do, I know I have something worth publishing.

7. What do you like to do for fun? Watch movies. This year has been great for them. IT, Gerald’s Game, The Dark Tower, Baby Driver, 68 Kill. I’m really looking forward to seeing I’m Dreaming of a White Doomsday by writer/director Mike Lombardo. The World Premiere is happening in Columbus, OH on October 20th at 2p.m. at Nightmares Film Festival. I also recently went on a hike with a close friend. No internet, no social media. Just us and nature. It was awesome to not only spend time with him, but to also disconnect from the world for a few hours. It’s something we’ll be doing regularly, weather permitting. I run on a regular basis. It keeps the head clear and helps me cope with stress. I also like to cook, try new recipes, and eat. All with balance. Dessert is okay if it’s not for breakfast. Sometimes. The most fun I truly have is building blanket forts, going to the park, and reading to my son. He likes flip books and monsters and dinosaurs. We read Harold and The Purple Crayon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Little Blue Truck… Watching him develop has been the ultimate high for me. I recently bought a stack of books off Mike Lombardo. YA horror, Goosebumps, Eerie Indiana, that sort of thing, for my kids when they get older. Maybe they’ll dig them like I did.

8. Any traditions you do when you finish a book? I go to Starbucks inside of the Barnes and Noble in the town over from me and get a piece of Red Velvet Cheesecake (they sell Cheesecake Factory cheesecake) and a coffee. Then I daydream that thousands of people will rejoice in being so entertained by something I created! Then I get nervous and think my writing is garbage then I publish it anyway and buy ad space on the Horror Show.

9. Where do you write? Quite or music? I write in my office in our basement at a desk. I used to write everywhere but I found in approaching writing like a part-time job its best for me to have a designated place to work. Like, I’m clocking in for the day! Time to go downstairs and get busy. I do write to music. I have a writing playlist on Spotify with four composers: Chad Lawson (who creates music for the Lore podcast), Lena Natalia, Danny Elfman, and most recently, Jon Hopkins. Most of it is classical. I get too distracted when I write to music with lyrics. There’s a Twin Peaks playlist on Spotify that I sometimes put on as well.

10. Anything you would change about your writing? The only thing I would change about my writing is improving it. Early next year I’ll be attending the Borderlands Press Writer’s Bootcamp in Maryland. I’m also reading How To Write Short by Roy Peter Clark. Once I’m finished with The Dark Tower Series, I’m going to start reading all the authors I’ve discovered from The Horror Show. One, for entertainment and, two, I think it’s good to read books by authors from different backgrounds. It gives the mind a new perspective on the world and offers a different voice, a different way to tell a story.

11. What is your dream? Famous writer? From a writing perspective, my dream is to become a full-time writer. As Brian Keene describes it, the main source of income. Now that I’m 37, the dream is to live long days upon the Earth (Dark Tower reference) with my wife and for us to raise our children to be loving, caring, responsible adults who follow their passion. Famous writer? No. Keep the fame. But I’ll gladly accept huge royalty checks!

12. Where do you live? A small town in Ohio. Surprise!

13. Pets? One dog, Chloe. She’s a German Shepherd. We took her in after my mother-in-law passed on. She’s great with the kids and patient with us.

14. What’s your favorite thing about writing? There’s a moment when I transcend into a story. The more I write, the more that happens. I’ll go back and polish what I wrote the previous day, sometimes not remembering certain lines that I had written. Sometimes I find myself next to the characters, oblivious to my surroundings. Sounds crazy (maybe it is) but it’s true. Writing makes me feel alive, as cliché as that sounds. It enriches my life. Also, one of the most rewarding things about it is when someone reaches out to tell you much they appreciated something you’ve created. That’s special. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s very touching.

15. What is coming next for you? A book called An American Monster. I won’t get into details because it’s not finished. I’m superstitious and if you’ve read anything I’ve ever wrote then you’ll know that I need all the luck I can get.

  You can connect with Sean Seebach here:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Sean-Seebach/e/B01CUT2JMK

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seanAseebach/

Website: https://www.amazon.com/Sean-Seebach/e/B01CUT2JMK/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1507564303&sr=8-1

Twitter: @seebach_sean

  Some of Sean Seebach’s books:

  For more on the people I’ve mentioned, here are links to their work: Meagan Smith (M. J. Pack) https://www.amazon.com/M.J.-Pack/e/B00O5APGTQ/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1507563809&sr=8-1 Tom Callahan https://www.amazon.com/Dark-City-Lights-York-Stories-ebook/dp/B00USBMIMY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1507563913&sr=8-1&keywords=dark+city+lights Brian Koppelman (no link. Just watch Billions on Showtime!) Lincoln Cole https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Cole/e/B00AUIOU3A/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1507564263&sr=8-2-ent M.N. Arzu https://www.amazon.com/M.-N.-Arzu/e/B013C7XY6O/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1507563985&sr=1-2-ent Armand Rosamilia https://www.amazon.com/Armand-Rosamilia/e/B004S48J6G/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1507564017&sr=1-2-ent Stephen Kozeniewski https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Kozeniewski/e/B00FFLC5Y8/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1507564054&sr=1-2-ent Gabino Iglesias https://www.amazon.com/Gabino-Iglesias/e/B00AEBI0T8/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1507564085&sr=1-2-ent Justin Bienvenue https://www.amazon.com/Justin-Bienvenue/e/B072F3QYGW/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1507564119&sr=1-2-ent David Spell https://thescaryreviews.com/ Sean Seebach https://www.amazon.com/Sean-Seebach/e/B01CUT2JMK/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1507564303&sr=8-1 Getting personal with Sean Seebach Influenced by Stephen King and Rod Serling, Sean Seebach has written three books: A Looking in View, Autumn Dark and Our Monsters Are Real: The Pig Man.

[patricksilvrrozartistry]

Current Music Obsessions: December 1 - 16, 2017

Sorry for being a bit late on this. Been pretty busy these last few days. ANYWAYS, I don't have as many honorable mentions this time, but I still got a lot of obsessions in general. I'm still working on purging my watch later playlist, so it's probably gonna be a while before things mellow out. Anyways, here are the honorable mentions.

Ilios - Into the Void The Dark Element - The Ghost and the Reaper Deathless Legacy - Witches' Brew Corvyx - Ready For It? (Taylor Swift cover) The Great Discord - Persona Right to the Void - Lines Concealed Reality - Hakai Tasters - Jakarta Coronatus - Mountain Sky Tragul - The Message Emptiness - Ever Heretoir - Golden Dust The Augurist Complex - Eartheater Noah Cyrus - Again feat. XXXTentacion My Dinosaur Life - One Fast Move or I'm Gone Sunflower Bean - I Was a Fool Sevdaliza - Hear My Pain Heal Distorted Harmony - Natural Selection Omnimar - Not Strong Arrayan Path - The Eleventh Mantra Wildpath - Buried Moon

Here come the many real obsessions.

1) Pussy Riot - Police State

I finally got around to checking them out last year when they dropped Make America Great Again. I knew they were a controversial band before checking them out after hearing about "free Pussy Riot" a few years ago, so it doesn't shock me to see them come out with a song centered around police brutality. It has a rather upbeat sound, but the lyrics hit you in the face. Definitely am gonna check out more of their work.

2) Cher - The Greatest Thing feat. Lady Gaga

I found this gem through Twitter and I'm so mad it never got a proper release. Two of the biggest gay icons did a song together and it never got properly released. AND IT'S SUCH A GREAT SONG. It's so good!

3) The Hardkiss - Кораблi (ПРЕМ'ЄРА)

This song has a slightly different vibe to it compared to their other songs. It feels a bit darker. I think the video also helps to sell that darker vibe. It's a great song and has a catchy chorus. I'm really digging the more prog rock direction they've been going in lately. Really looking forward to their next release.

4) Madonna - Like a Prayer

I found a new "feel good" artist for me, and it's Madonna. I never really dabbled into her music, but I decided to do so recently and I found this gem. It's so lovely and just puts me in such a positive mood. If any of you want to recommend me any other songs from her, feel free to do so.

5) The Hit House - The Ordinary World

I wasn't all that interested in The Evil Within when it first came out a few years ago, because the story just seemed to be boring and lackluster in the beginning, but after watching Metal Ass Gaming play the beginning of the second one, I had to give it another shot. So I watched Markiplier play it and liked it, then I watched him play the second and LOVED IT. Such a wonderful game that is unexpectedly emotional. And this is the ending theme song. It fits the game so well and I love the overall vibe of it. It has a nice atmospheric rock feel to it with a bit of a cinematic vibe.

6) Dool - The Alpha

I finally got around to listening to their new album and loved it. Such a great doomy rock album. This song is definitely one of my favorites off it. I find myself singing the chorus quite frequently because it's so catchy. I really need to check their front woman, Ryanne van Dorst's other project Elle Bandita and see how they differ.

7) The Great Discord - Gadget

The Rabbit Hole is such an epic album and is a massive improvement compared to their last release. Duende was great, but this is on some next level shit. This song alone shows how much they've grown and evolved since then. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever hear "woohoo" sung in a pretty voice in a progressive metal track, but these guys did it and it's wonderful. Definitely go give this album a listen.

8) Debler - Cuando las Estrellas dejen de Brillar feat. Ailyn (ex-Sirenia)

So this song is fucking beautiful. Ailyn and Debler's frontman's voices go so beautifully together. Not only that, but Ailyn hits some impressive whistle notes. She's pretty much the symphonic/gothic metal scene's version of Mariah Carey, but isn't a diva and is precious and needs to be protected.

9) Deadspace - The Liquid Sky

These guys actually messaged me on here about a month or so ago and I'm so glad they did. Their music is amazing. @deadspaceaus are a blackened doom metal band from Australia and their frontman has a gorgeous voice. I'm so looking forward to listening to their new album, because this song alone has me intrigued. Definitely go check them out.

10) My Propane - Before You Are Dead

This is their latest song they've released and it's epic and in your face from start to finish. I love how before the song starts, Valerio just calmly says "Ok, here we go" and then the guitars kick in and he's screaming right afterwards. I can't wait for them to release a full length album.

11) Vuur - The Fire ~ San Francisco

This is one of the standouts off their debut album. It has such an interesting vibe to it. Anekke said in a track-by-track video that the high notes she sings are to represent the sirens of firetrucks. How creative is that? I also find it slightly ironic that I got into this song just as the wildfires in SoCal were making media attention.

12) Ciara - Paint it Black (The Rolling Stones cover)

I randomly found this cover and fell in love instantly. I never expected to hear something like this from her. It's so cinematic and so dark and haunting. I love it. I honestly prefer over the original version. There's just something about this version that is so much better than the original. Maybe it's because it's so dramatic, and you guys know that I LOVE dramatic music.

13) Muna - I Know a Place

The About U album is wonderful and full of so much emotion. This song is definitely one of the more positive and upbeat ones on it. It's not one of my favorites off it, but it's definitely a great jam.

14) Elegy of Madness - Nobody Cares

Discovered this song through an acoustic version their record label shared on YT, so I decided to see if I could find a studio version and I got obsessed. It's so catchy, but it's so epic and powerful. I'm definitely am gonna check out more from them.

15) Tyminski - Southern Gothic

This is the closest I'm probably am ever going to get to listening to country music, all because it doesn't sound like mainstream country music. The only bit that sounds remotely country to me is the singer's voice. Everything else sounds like a modern pop song and I love it. Even the vibe of the song itself doesn't seem like a country song. I'm very interested in this guy and will be checking out more in the future.

16) Kari Rueslatten - Gone

Silence is the Only Sound has a very different vibe compared to To the North. It sounds a bit more positive and peaceful and not as ambient and mellow. This song is one of the least upbeat songs on the album and has more of a pop-rock-ish vibe to it. Really digging it.

17) My Indigo - My Indigo

This is Sharon den Adel (Within Temptation)'s new solo project and I'm blown away. This song is so gorgeous and lovely. I didn't expect it to be as powerful as it is. I'm always finding myself singing "my indigo" throughout the day. Definitely go check this out and I'm so excited to hear the full length album.

18) Plague of Stars - When Morning Came (live)

They shared this live video on their channel, so I checked it out and was blown away. I've been a fan of Melissa Ferlaak for a few years and this project is the heaviest and most aggressive she's been a part of. I really need to listen to their debut album already, especially since new songs are in the works.

19) Bent Knee - Terror Bird

This song got stuck in my head one day and wouldn't leave for days, all thanks to me not remembering what it was. It was actually these posts that helped me find it! It made on here a while back. It's a really great prog track and their front woman has such an interesting voice. I imagine this would be what Bjork would sound like if she made a prog album.

20) Revenience - Shamble

I rekindled my love for this song recently. It's a really great symphonic metal track with a bit of a prog-power vibe to it. I had the chorus stuck in my head for a few days after I randomly listened it, and that's how the obsession started all over again. I really need to check out more from them.

21) Starkill - All I Want for Christmas is You

MARIAH CAREY WHO? They SLEIGHED this song! I'm not a fan of the original since it's so overplayed, but this version is wonderful. Adding this onto my list of nontraditional Christmas songs I can listen to to get in the holiday spirit.

That's it for the first half of December. I wonder what other gems I'll come across this month.